LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

PRINCETON,    N.    J. 
PRESENTED    BY 

IVIrs,    Johm   JJ.  lJ^v<5. 

BX    6826    .V959g  ) 

Vos,    Geerhardus,    1862-1949 
Grace   and   glory  i 


JAK  :  -  132/ 


GRACE  AND  GLORY 


Sermons  Preached  in  the  Chapel 

=====  OF  ==^= 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary 


BY 

GEERHARDUS  VOS 


THE  REFORMED  PRESS 

GRAND  RAPIDS.  MICH. 

1922 


Copyrighted 

THE  REFORMED  PRESS 
1922 


CONTENTS 


I.    The  Wonderful  Tree 7 

II.  Hungering  and  Thirsting  after 

Righteousness 37 

III.  Seeking  and  Saving  the  Lost 61 

IV.  "Rabboni" 89 

V.    The  More  Excellent  Ministry 107 

VI.     Heavenly- Mindedness 133 


I.     The  Wonderful  Tree 


Hosea  XIV,  8:  "1  am  like  a  green 
fir-tree;  from  me  is  thy  fruit 
found." 


THE      WONDERFUL      TREE 


HHHIS  prophetic  utterance  represents  one  of 
the  two  inseparable  sides  in  the  make-up  of 
religion.  If  we  say  that  religion  consists  of 
what  God  is  for  man,  and  of  what  man  is  for 
God,  then  our  text  in  the  divine  statement, 
"From  me  is  thy  fruit  found,"  stands  for  the 
former.  To  balance  it  with  the  other  side  some 
such  word  as  that  of  Isaiah  might  be  taken,  "The 
vineyard  of  Jehovah  of  Hosts  is  the  house  of 
Israel."  Nor  would  it  be  an  arbitrary  combina- 
tion of  disconnected  passages  thus  pointedly  to 
place  the  one  over  against  the  other.  In  each 
case  a  careful  study  of  the  prophet  would  re- 
veal that  not  some  incidental  turn  of  thought, 
but  an  habitual  point  of  view,  imparting  tone 
and  color  to  the  entire  religious  experience,  had 
found  expression  in  a  characteristic  form  of 
statement.  The  two  points  of  view  are  sup- 
plementary, and,  taken  together,  exhaustive 
of  what  the  normal  relation  between  God  and 
man  involves.  Until  we  learn  to  unite  the  Isaiah- 
type  of  piety  with  that  of  Hosea,  we  shall  not  at- 
tain a  full  and  harmonious  development  of  our 
religious  life. 

Let  us  this  time  look  at  the  half-circle  of 
truth  expressed  by  the  older  prophet.  The  text 
stands  in  the  most  beautiful  surroundings, 
not  merely  within  Hosea's  own  prophecy, 
but  in  the  entire  Old  Testament.  There  is  a 
charm  about  this  chapter  more  easily  felt  than 
described.    It  is  like  the  clear  shining  after  rain, 


8  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

when  the  sun  riseth,  a  morning  without  clouds. 
In  what  precedes  there  is  much  that  is  hard  to 
understand.  Hosea's  style  is  abrupt,  full  of 
strange  leaps  from  vision  to  vision.  But  here  we 
suddenly  pass  out  of  the  labyrinth  of  involved 
oracles  into  the  clear  open.  It  is  a  prophecy 
suffused  with  deep  feeling.  All  the  native 
tenderness  of  the  prophet,  the  acute  sensitive- 
ness and  responsiveness  of  his  emotional  nature, 
rendering  him,  as  it  were,  a  musical  instrument 
expectant  of  the  Spirit's  touch,  are  here  in 
striking  evidence;  the  dissonances  of  the  many 
prophecies  of  woe  resolve  themselves  in  the 
sweet  harmony  of  a  closing  prophecy  of  promise. 
And  besides,  the  incomparable  light  of  the 
future  shines  upon  this  chapter.  It  is  bathed  in 
the  glory  of  the  latter  days,  those  glories  which 
no  prophet  could  describe  without  giving  forth 
the  finest  notes  of  which  his  organ  was  capable. 
In  the  repertoire  of  the  prophets  the  choicest 
always  belongs  to  the  farthest.  When  their  eye 
rests  on  the  world  to  come,  a  miracle  is  wrought 
in  their  speech,  so  that,  in  accord  with  the  things 
described,  it  borrows  from  the  melodies  of  the 
other  world. 

Still  the  spell  thrown  upon  our  minds  by  this 
piece  is  by  no  means  wholly,  or  even  chiefly,  due 
to  its  form.  It  is  the  peculiar  content  that  capti- 
vates the  heart  as  the  music  captivates  the  ear. 
It  is  not  to  be  expected  of  any  prophet  that  he 
shall  put  into  his  prophecies  relating  to  the  end 
indiscriminately  of  his  treasure,  but  chiefly  what 
is  to  him  its  most  precious  part,  that  which  the 
Spirit  of  revelation  had  led  him,  and  him  above 


THE      WONDERFUL      TREE  9 

others,  to  apprehend  and  appreciate.  From  ut- 
terances of  this  kind,  therefore,  we  get  our  best 
perception  of  what  lay  nearest  to  the  prophet's 
heart.  So,  certainly,  it  is  here  with  Hosea.  In 
its  last  analysis,  the  charm  of  this  chapter  is 
none  other  than  the  innate  charm  of  the 
prophet's  most  cherished  acquaintance  with 
Jehovah.  And,  applied  to  the  future,  this  may 
be  summed  up  in  the  idea  that  the  possession  of 
Jehovah  Himself  by  his  people  will  be  of  all  the 
delights  of  the  world  to  come  the  chief  and  most 
satisfying,  the  paradise  within  the  paradise  of 
God.  The  whole  description  leads  up  to  this  and 
revolves  around  it.  As  preparing  for  it,  the  re- 
turn to  Jehovah  is  mentioned  first.  The  end  of 
the  great  change  is  that  the  people  may  once 
more  live  in  the  presence  of  God.  The  prayer 
the  prophet  puts  upon  their  lips  is,  "Take  away 
all  iniquity,"  with  the  emphasis  upon  the  all,  so 
as  to  indicate  that  not  x)therwise  than  by  the 
absolute  removal  of  all  sin  can  the  cloudless 
atmosphere  be  created  for  the  supreme  enjoy- 
m.ent  of  God.  And  the  people  pledge  that 
their  eyes  and  hearts  henceforth  shall  be 
closed  to  the  lure  of  idols.  As  a  helpless 
orphan  Israel  casts  herself  upon  Jehovah's 
grace:  "We  will  not  say  anymore  to  the 
work  of  our  hands,  ye  are  our  gods,  for  in 
Thee  the  fatherless  findeth  mercy."  But  clear- 
est of  all  the  idea  appears  in  the  direct  speech 
Jehovah  is  represented  as  in  that  day  address- 
ing the  people,  to  the  effect  that  He  Himself 
is  eagerly  desirous  to  pour  out  the  riches  of  his 
affection  upon  the  heart  of  Israel  and  meet  her 


10  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

desire  for  Him  to  the  utmost  measure  of  its 
capacity:  "I  have  answered  and  will  regard 
him ;  I  will  be  as  the  dew  to  Israel :  he  shall  blos- 
som as  the  lily,  and  cast  forth  his  roots  as  Leba- 
non. His  branches  shall  spread,  and  his  beauty 
shall  be  as  the  olive-tree,  and  his  smell  as  Leba- 
non. They  shall  revive  as  the  grain,  and  blos- 
som as  the  vine ;  I  am  like  a  green  fir-tree ;  from 
me  is  thy  fruit  found." 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  that  our  text  is  really 
the  climax  of  this  speech  of  Jehovah.  Through 
the  addition  of  image  to  image  the  divine  pur- 
pose of  giving  Himself  gathers  intensity,  till  at 
last  God  appears  as  a  green  tree,  bearing  fruit 
for  his  people.  This  is  truly  a  marvelous  repre- 
sentation, well  adapted  to  startle  us,  when  we 
think  ourselves  into  it.  It  seems  to  imply  some- 
thing in  God  that,  in  the  desire  for  self-commu- 
nication exceeds  even  the  strongest  affection  of 
a  human  parent  for  his  children.  And  yet,  my 
hearers,  when  reflecting  upon  it  for  a  moment, 
can  we  fail  to  observe  that  the  marvel  in  it  is 
nothing  else  than  the  heart-miracle  of  all  true 
religion,  the  great  paradox  underlying  all  God's 
concern  with  us.  That  He,  the  all-sufficient  One, 
forever  rich  and  blessed  in  Himself,  should,  as  it 
were,  take  Himself  in  His  own  hands,  making  of 
Himself  an  object  to  be  bestowed  upon  a  crea- 
ture, so  as  to  change  before  the  eyes  of  the 
prophet  into  a  tree,  showering  its  fruit  upon 
Israel,  lavish  as  nothing  in  all  nature  but  a 
tree  can  be,  this  surely  is  something  to  be 
wondered  at,  and  something  which,  though 
it    recurs    a    thousand    times,    no    experience 


THE      WONDERFUL      TREE  n 

or  enjoyment  ought  to  be  able  to  rob  of  its 
wonder.  There  is  in  it  more  than  we  convey  by 
the  term  "communion  with  God."  That  admits  of 
relativity,  there  are  degrees  in  it,  but  this  figure 
depicts  the  thing  in  its  highest  and  deepest  pos- 
sibility, as  flowing  from  the  divine  desire  so  to 
take  us  into  the  immediate,  intimate  circle  of  his 
own  life  and  blessedness,  as  to  make  all  its  re- 
sources serve  our  delight,  a  river  of  pleasures 
from  his  right  hand.  It  might  almost  seem  as  if 
there  were  here  a  reversal  of  the  process  of  re- 
ligion itself,  inasmuch  as  God  appears  putting 
Himself  at  the  service  of  man,  and  that  with  the 
absolute  generosity  born  of  supreme  love.  This 
relation  into  which  it  pleases  God  to  receive 
Israel  with  Himself  has  in  it  a  sublime  abandon ; 
it  knows  neither  restraint  nor  reserve.  Using 
human  language  one  might  say  that  God  enters 
into  this  heart  and  soul  and  mind  and  strength. 
Since  God  thus  gives  Himself  to  his  people  for 
fruition,  and  his  resources  are  infinite,  there  is 
no  possibility  of  their  ever  craving  more  or  seek- 
ing more  of  Him  than  it  is  good  for  them  to  re- 
ceive. To  deprive  religion  of  this,  by  putting  it 
upon  the  barren  basis  of  pure  disinterestedness, 
is  not  merely  a  pretense  to  be  wiser  than  God; 
it  is  also  an  act  of  robbing  God  of  His  own  joy 
through  refusing  the  joy  into  which  He  has,  as 
it  were,  resolved  Himself  for  us.  So  far  from 
being  a  matter  of  gloom  and  depression,  religion 
in  its  true  concept  is  an  exultant  state,  the 
supreme  feast  and  sabbath  of  the  soul. 

Of  course,  in  saying  this,  we  do  not  forget 
that  such  religion  in  its  absoluteness  can  be  for  a 


12  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

fallen  race  but  a  memory  and  a  hope.  The  pain- 
ful and  distressing  elements  that  enter  into  our 
Christian  experience  are  by  no  means  the  prod- 
uct of  a  perverted  and  bigoted  imagination.  Re- 
ligion need  not  be  in  error  or  insincere  when  it 
makes  man  put  ashes  on  his  head,  instead  of 
every  day  anointing  his  countenance  with  the 
oil  of  gladness.  In  order  to  be  of  any  use  what- 
ever to  us  in  a  state  of  sin  it  must  assume  the 
form  of  redemption,  and  from  redemption  the 
elements  of  penitence  and  pain  are  inseparable. 
Here  lies  the  one  source  of  all  the  discomfort 
and  self-repression  entering  into  the  occupation 
of  man  with  God,  of  the  sad  litany  which  re- 
vealed religion,  and  to  some  extent  even  natural 
religion,  has  chanted  through  the  ages.  Let  no 
one  in  a  spirit  of  superficial  light-heartedness 
ridicule  it,  for,  though  it  may  have  its  excres- 
cences and  hypocrisies,  in  itself  it  is  as  inevitable 
as  the  joy  of  religion  itself.  There  is  as  much  rea- 
son to  pity  the  man  to  whom  religion  has  brought 
no  sorrow  as  the  one  to  whom  it  has  brought  no 
joy.  The  bitter  herbs  may  not  be  omitted  from 
the  Paschal  feast  of  deliverance.  Perhaps  the 
saddest  thing  to  be  said  of  sin  is  that  it  has  thus 
been  able  to  invade  religion  at  its  very  core  of 
joy,  injecting  into  it  the  opposite  of  its  nature. 
And  yet  it  is  equally  true  that  there  is  no  re- 
ligious joy  like  the  joy  engendered  by  redemp- 
tion. Nor  is  this  simply  due  to  the  law  of  con- 
trast which  makes  the  relief  of  deliverance  pro- 
portionate to  the  pain  which  it  succeeds.  A 
more  particular  cause  is  at  work  here.  In  re- 
demption God  opens  up  Himself  to  us  and  sur- 


THE      WONDERFUL      TREE  13 

renders  his  inner  life  to  our  possession  in  a 
wholly  unprecedented  manner  of  which  the  re- 
ligion of  nature  can  have  neither  dream  nor  an- 
ticipation. It  is  more  clearly  in  saving  us  than 
in  creating  us  that  God  shows  Himself  God.  To 
taste  and  feel  the  riches  of  his  Godhead,  as  freely 
given  unto  us,  one  must  have  passed  not  only 
through  the  abjectness  and  poverty  and  despair 
of  sin  but  through  the  overwhelming  experience 
of  salvation.  He  who  is  saved  explores  and  re- 
ceives more  of  God  than  unfallen  man  or  even 
the  unfallen  angel  can.  The  song  of  Moses  and 
of  the  Lamb  has  in  it  a  deeper  exultation  than 
that  which  the  sons  of  God  and  the  morning- 
stars  sang  together  for  joy  in  the  Creator. 

This  redemptive  self-communication  of  God 
is  what  the  prophet  has  particularly  in  mind  in 
recording  the  promise  of  our  text.  As  already 
stated,  it  is  a  gift  of  the  future,  and,  of  course, 
the  entire  future  stands  to  him,  as  to  every 
prophet,  in  the  sign  of  redemption.  Not  as  if 
the  future  meant  only  redemption.  There  is  no 
more  characteristic  trait  in  prophecy  than  that 
it  never  makes  the  crisis  of  judgment  a  road  to 
mere  restoration  of  what  existed  before,  but  the 
occasion  for  the  bringing  in  of  something  wholly 
new  and  unexperienced  in  the  past,  so  that 
Jehovah  comes  out  of  the  conflict,  not  as  one 
who  has  barely  snatched  his  work  from  destruc- 
tion, but  as  the  great  Victor  who  has  made  the 
forces  of  sin  and  evil  his  servants  for  the  ac- 
complishment of  a  higher  and  wider  purpose. 
There  is  an  exact  correspondence  in  this  respect 
between  the  large  movement  of  redemption, 


14  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

taken  as  a  whole,  and  the  enactment  of  its  prin- 
ciples on  a  smaller  scale  within  the  history  of 
Israel.  As  the  second  Adam  is  greater  than  the 
first,  and  the  paradise  of  the  future  fairer  than 
that  of  the  past,  so  the  new-born  Israel  to  the 
prophet's  vision  is  a  nobler  figure  and  exists 
under  far  more  favorable  conditions  than  the 
empirical  Israel  of  before.  Once  its  Peniel-night 
is  over,  it  will  live  in  the  light  and  feed  upon  the 
goodness  of  God,  and  be  beautified  through  its 
religious  embrace  of  Him.  This  thought  is  not 
unclearly  suggested  by  the  very  figure  of  our 
text.  Whatever  may  be  the  precise  tree  species 
designated  by  the  word  "berosh,"  here  ren- 
dered as  fir-tree,  at  any  rate  an  evergreen  is 
meant,  a  tree  retaining  its  verdure  in  all  seasons 
of  the  year,  never  failing  in  its  power  to  shade 
and  to  refresh.  The  reason  is  none  other  than 
that  for  which  in  vs.  6  Israel  in  its  beauty  is 
compared  to  the  olive-tree,  a  tree  likewise  peren- 
nially clothed  with  foliage.  But  there  is  still 
something  else  and  far  more  wonderful  about 
this  tree.  While  by  nature  not  a  fruit-bearing 
tree  in  the  ordinary  sense,  it  changes  itself  into 
one  before  the  eyes  of  the  prophet.  If  nothing 
more  than  the  idea  of  fruitfulness  were  in- 
tended, the  figure  of  the  olive-tree  would  have 
lain  closer  at  hand.  But  the  labor  of  the  olive 
is  a  process  of  nature  and  bound  to  the  sea- 
sons, and  evidently  what  Hosea  wishes  to 
express  is  the  concurrence  in  the  same  tree 
of  miraculous  fruitage,  perennial  yield,  and 
never-failing  shade,  for  the  context  empha- 
sizes  all   three.     It   is   evident   that   we   are 


THE      WONDERFUL      TREE  15 

here  in  another  tree-world  than  that  of  Pales- 
tine; it  is  the  neighborhood  of  the  tree  of  life 
of  which  we  read  elsewhere  that  it  yields  its 
fruit  every  month.  Plainly  Jehovah  is  thus  rep- 
resented on  account  of  his  specific  redemptive 
productiveness,  and  that  in  its  heightened  future 
form,  when  new  unheard  of  influences  shall  pro- 
ceed from  Him  for  the  nourishing  and  enjoy- 
ment of  his  people.  Surely  here  is  something 
that  nature,  even  God's  goodness  in  nature, 
could  never  yield.  Perhaps  we  are  not  assum- 
ing too  much  by  finding  still  another  element 
in  the  comparison.  In  emphasizing  the  verdant, 
living  character  of  Jehovah  with  reference  to 
Israel,  the  prophet  may  have  had  in  mind,  by 
way  of  contrast,  the  pagan  deity  from  which 
these  qualities  of  life  and  fruitfulness  and 
miraculous  provision  are  utterly  absent.  There 
used  to  stand  beside  the  altar  of  idolatry  a  pole 
rudely  fashioned  in  the  image  of  Asherah,  the 
spouse  of  Baal  and  goddess  of  fruitfulness. 
Nothing  could  have  more  strikingly  symbolized 
the  barrenness  and  hopelessness  of  nature  wor- 
ship than  this  dead  stump  in  which  no  bud  could 
sprout,  and  on  which  no  bird  would  alight,  and 
of  which  no  fruit  was  to  be  found  forever.  How 
desperate  is  the  plight  of  those  Canaanites, 
modern  no  less  than  ancient,  who  must  look  for 
the  satisfaction  of  their  hunger  to  the  dead  wood 
of  the  Asherah  of  nature,  because  they  have  no 
faith  in  the  perpetual  miracle  of  the  fruit-bear- 
ing fir-tree  of  redemption. 

But  let  us  endeavor  to  ascertain  what  con- 
crete meaning  the  prophet  attaches  to  the  image 


16  GRACE     AND      GLORY 

of  the  text.  What  is  the  fruit  that  is  promised 
to  Israel?  To  answer  this  we  shall  have  to 
go  beyond  the  confines  of  the  text  and  look 
around  us  in  the  preceding  prophecy.  The  study 
of  this  will  teach  that  there  are  four  outstand- 
ing features  to  Jehovah's  gift  to  Israel  of  the 
fruition  of  Himself.  We  find  that  it  is  eminently 
personal,  exclusive,  individual,  and  transform- 
ing in  its  influence. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  Israel's  fruition  of 
Jehovah  is  eminently  personal.  One  might 
truthfully  say  that  the  idea  of  the  possession  of 
one's  God  in  this  pointedly  personal  sense  is  an 
idea  grown  on  the  soil  of  revelation,  nurtured 
by  the  age-long  self-communication  of  God  to 
his  own.  To  be  sure,  the  thought  that  the  for- 
tunes of  life  must  be  related  to  the  deity  is  a 
common  one  in  Semitic  religion.  Edom  and 
Moab  and  Ammon  also  have  joy  before  their 
gods.  But  this  is  still  something  far  different 
from  having  joy  in  one's  God.  The  latter  is 
Israel's  distinction.  To  have  a  god  and  to  have 
God  are  two  things.  The  difference  can  be 
measured  by  the  presence  and  the  absence  of 
the  covenant  idea  in  the  two  different  circles. 
When  Jehovah,  entering  into  covenant  with 
Israel  says,  "I  will  be  unto  you  a  God,  and  ye 
shall  be  unto  me  a  people,"  this  means  infinitely 
more  than  the  trite  idea:  henceforth  ye  shall 
worship  me  and  I  will  cultivate  you.  It  is  the 
mutual  surrender  of  person  to  person.  Jehovah 
throws  in  his  lot  with  Israel,  no  less  truly  than 
Israel's  lot  is  bound  up  with  Jehovah.  To  ex- 
press it  in  terms  of  the  text  one  would  have  to 


THE      WONDERFUL      TREE  17 

force  the  figure  and  say  that  not  merely  the 
fruit,  nor  merely  the  tree  for  its  fruit,  but  the 
tree  itself,  as  a  glorious  living  being,  is  the  cher- 
ished treasure  of  the  owner.  The  sense  of  this 
is  so  vivid  that  it  has  given  rise  to  the  phrase 
"Portion  of  Israel"  as  a  personal  name  of  God. 
To  the  mind  of  Hosea  the  most  forcible,  indeed 
final  and  absolute,  expression  of  this  precious 
truth  had  been  reached  in  the  form  of  the  mar- 
riage-union between  God  and  Israel.  That  is 
simply  a  closer  specification  of  the  covenant  idea, 
and  it  brings  out  precisely  that  side  of  it  on 
which  we  are  dwelling,  the  personal  aspect  of  the 
union  involved.  While  this  is  from  the  nature  of 
the  case  conceived  of  as  mutual,  yet  the  emphasis 
rests  perceptibly  on  the  divine  side  of  it.  To  be 
sure,  Israel  also  personally  surrendered  herself 
to  Jehovah,  for  we  read  that  she  made  answer  in 
the  days  of  her  youth,  and  through  Jeremiah 
God  declares:  "I  remember  thee  for  the  kind- 
ness of  thy  youth,  the  love  of  thine  espousals, 
how  thou  wentest  after  me  in  the  wilderness,  in 
a  land  that  was  not  sown."  But  that  was  in 
the  beginning;  in  the  sequel  Israel  soon  proved 
indifferent  and  faithless.  The  burden  of  the 
message  lies  in  the  ascription  of  this  to  Jehovah 
as  a  permanent,  unchangeable  disposition.  He 
had  not  for  one  moment  ceased  to  be  the  per- 
sonal and  intimate  life  companion  of  Israel.  The 
covenant  might  be  suspended,  but  so  long  as  it 
lasted,  it  could  have  no  other  meaning  than  this, 
for  this  lay  at  its  heart.  In  a  number  of  deli- 
cate little  touches  the  prophet  reveals  his  con- 
sciousness of  it.    After  the  dire  calamities  of 


18  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

the  judgment  have  overwhelmed  the  people  and 
seemingly  left  nothing  further  to  be  swept  away, 
then,  as  a  climax,  by  the  side  of  which  all  else 
shrinks  into  insignificance,  Jehovah  announces 
that   He   will   now  personally  withdraw  from 
Israel.    And  corresponding  to  this,  after  they 
have  sat  many  days  in  the  desolation  of  exile, 
all    but    divorced    from    God,    the    first    and 
supremely  important  step  in  their  conversion  is 
that  they  come  trembling  unto   Jehovah   and 
unto  his  goodliness  in  the  latter  days.    Even 
in  the  Messianic  outlook  this  strongly  personal 
view-point  appears.    With  a  peculiarly  affec- 
tionate turn  to  the  thought  the  prophet  repre- 
sents the  people  as  in  the  end  seeking  David 
their  king,  through  remembrance  of  the  sure 
covenant  mercies  attaching  to  the  name  of  one 
who  was  the  man  after  God's  heart,  and  thus 
in  himself  a  pledge  of  the  divine  love  towards 
the  people.   In  the  sphere  of  external,  terrestrial 
gifts   the    same    principle    applies.     Here,    of 
course,  revealed  religion  comes  nearest  to  the 
circle  of  ideas  of  paganism.    Baal,  no  less  than 
Jehovah,  is  supposed  to  give  to  his  servants  the 
produce  of  the  soil.    But  what  a  principle  dif- 
ference between  the  attitude  in  which  paganism 
entertains  this  idea  and  the  spirit  in  which  the 
prophet  expects  Israel  to  cherish  it !   The  pagan 
cult  cleaves  to  the  sod,  and  buries  itself  in  the 
heaps  of  grain  and  the  rivers  of  oil,  and  remem- 
bers not,  except  in  the  most  external  way,  the 
god  who  gave.    The  worship  sits  loosely  upon 
the  life;  it  is  a  habit  rather  than  an  organic 
function,  and  subject  to  change,  if  the  turn  of 


THE      WONDERFUL      TREE  19 

fortune  requires.  Paganized  Israel  herself  is 
introduced  as  speaking  in  the  distress  of  har- 
vest failure,  "I  will  go  after  my  lovers,  that 
give  me  my  bread  and  my  water,  my  wool  and 
my  flax,  mine  oil  and  my  drink."  "But,"  says 
Jehovah,  "she  knew  not  that  I  gave  her  the  grain 
and  the  must  and  the  oil  and  multiplied  unto 
her  silver  and  gold."  To  Hosea  the  main  prin- 
ciple is  that  the  gifts  shall  come  to  the  people 
with  the  dew  of  Jehovah's  love  upon  them,  de- 
riving their  value  not  so  much  from  what  they 
are  intrinsically  but  from  the  fact  of  their  being 
tokens  of  affection,  to  each  one  of  which  clings 
something  of  the  personality  of  the  giver.  And 
Jehovah  knows  such  a  special  art  of  putting 
Himself  into  these  favors ;  He  is  not  imprisoned 
in  them  as  are  the  Baals,  but  freely  lives  in  and 
loves  through  them,  so  as  to  make  them  touch 
the  heart  of  Israel.  When  the  time  of  her  new 
betrothal  comes,  and  she  sees  the  gifts  for  her 
adornment,  she  exclaims,  "Ishi,  my  husband!" 
and  no  longer  "Baali,  my  lord !"  Notice  the  role 
that  nature  plays  in  effecting  this ;  the  externals 
are  by  no  means  despised;  they  have  simply 
ceased  to  be  externals,  and  been  turned  into  one 
great  sacramental  vehicle  of  spiritual  favor. 
Jehovah  sets  in  motion  the  whole  circuit  of  na- 
ture for  the  service  of  his  people :  "It  shall  come 
to  pass  in  that  day,  I  will  answer  the  heavens 
and  they  shall  answer  the  earth,  and  the  earth 
shall  answer  the  grain  and  the  new  wine  and 
the  oil,  and  they  shall  answer  Jezreel."  The 
things  do  not  mutely  grow,  they  speak,  they 
answer,  they  sing,  and  the  voice  that  travels 


20  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

through  them  is  the  voice  of  Jehovah.  Nature 
becomes  the  instrument  of  grace.  That  in  the 
spiritual  sphere  proper  everything  proceeds 
along  the  same  line  need  hardly  be  pointed  out. 
God  speaks  comfortably  unto  Israel  to  call  her 
back  to  repentance.  He  loves  her  freely,  and  it 
is  through  making  her  realize  this  fact  that  He 
effects  her  return.  His  bridal  gifts  to  Israel 
are  righteousness  and  mercy  and  faithfulness 
and  lovingkindness.  The  mercy  that  He  shows 
them  in  their  distress  is  at  bottom  something 
far  deeper  and  finer  and  more  spiritualized  than 
the  generic  sense  of  pity.  It  is  chesed,  loving- 
kindness,  that  is,  mercy  intensified  a  thou- 
sand times  by  the  tenderness  of  an  antecedent 
love.  It  is  not  compassion  that  saves  Israel,  for 
compassion,  though  truly  spiritual  in  itself,  lies 
but  on  the  circumference  of  that  mysterious 
saving  movement  that  springs  in  the  divine 
heart  from  love  and  grace  as  its  center. 

In  the  second  place  the  possession  and  enjoy- 
ment for  which  Jehovah  offers  Himself  to  Israel 
are  an  exclusive  relationship.  Here  the  figure  of 
marriage  comes  into  play.  Hosea  has  greatly 
idealized  this  figure,  at  least  as  compared  with 
the  customs  of  his  time.  No  matter  which  side 
we  choose  in  the  exegetical  dispute  as  to  whether 
the  first  three  chapters  are  allegory  or  recite 
facts,  in  either  case,  be  it  by  a  unique  experi- 
ence or  through  a  unique  vision,  the  prophet  has 
produced  a  marriage  ideal  fit  to  be  the  parable 
of  the  covenant.  In  this  idealized  form  it  ren- 
ders most  faithfully  the  latter's  essential  fea- 
tures.   For  emphasizing  the  pure  spirituality  of 


THE      WONDERFUL      TREE  21 

the  relation  nothing  could  be  more  suitable.  In 
this  respect  it  excels  even  the  figure  of  father- 
hood and  sonship.  For  these  originate  in  nature 
without  free  choice.  The  bond  of  marriage,  as 
conceived  by  Hosea,  was  established  through  a 
spiritual  process.  God,  after  having  created 
Israel,  sought  and  cultivated  her  affection.  He 
did  this  in  the  beginning  and  will  do  it  again  in 
the  future.  So  intent  is  the  prophet  upon  guard- 
ing the  ideal,  ethereal  perfection  of  the  union 
that  he  studiously  avoids  representing  the  com- 
ing state  of  blessedness  as  a  restoration  of  the 
previous  bond,  lest  the  sin-clouds  of  the  past 
should  project  their  shadows  into  it.  There- 
fore the  consistency  of  the  figure  is  disregarded ; 
no  reparation,  no  remarriage  is  mentioned;  the 
past  is  blotted  out;  the  sin  loses  both  stain  and 
sting;  the  future  arises  as  a  fresh  creation  out 
of  the  waters  of  oblivion  beneath  which  Israel's 
guilt  has  been  buried.  It  is  the  new,  otherwise 
unrepeatable,  love  of  the  first  bloom  of  youth 
shedding  its  fragrance  over  all :  "I  will  betroth 
thee  unto  me  in  faithfulness,  and  I  will  say, 
Thou  art  my  people,  and  they  shall  say,  Thou 
art  our  God."  Now  this  same  idealization  also 
appears  in  regard  to  the  mutual  exclusiveness  of 
the  covenant  attachment.  For  we  must  remem- 
ber that  the  prophet  affirms  this  with  equal 
absoluteness  with  reference  to  the  covenant 
husband  as  to  the  wife,  and  in  this  respect  cus- 
tom in  his  day  fell  far  short  of  the  ideal.  When 
God  gives  Himself  to  Israel  it  is  with  the  clear 
understanding  and  promise  that  He  does  not 
do  so  to  any  other  people.    And  the  exclusive- 


22  GRACEANDGLORY  ^ 

ness  on  the  part  of  God  demands  an  equally  ex- 
clusive return  of  love  and  service  such  as  shall 
leave  no  room  for  strange  devotion.  Still  at 
this  point  the  reality  somehow  again  transcends 
the  figure.  Not  that  God  is  husband,  but  the 
kind  of  husband  He  is,  comes  under  considera- 
tion. It  is  not  merely  his  general  honor  that  is 
at  stake,  as  would  be  the  case  in  ordinary  human 
marriage;  apart  from  all  else  the  specifically 
divine  character  of  his  Person  and  love  renders 
exclusiveness  imperative.  Even  in  giving  Him- 
self God  remains  God  and  requires  from  Israel 
the  acknowledgment  of  this.  The  gift  is  divine 
and  desires  for  itself  a  temple  where  no  other 
presence  shall  be  tolerated.  If  we  feel  God  to 
be  ours,  then  we  also  feel  that  no  one  but  God 
can  ever  be  ours  in  the  same  exclusive  ineffable 
sense  and  that  every  similar  absorption  by  any 
purely  human  relationship  would  partake  of  the 
idolatrous.  The  only  thing  that  can  give  a  faint 
suggestion  of  the  engrossing  character  of  the 
divine  hold  upon  His  people  is  the  first  awaken- 
ing of  what  we  call  romantic  love  in  the  youth- 
ful heart  with  its  concentration  of  all  the  inten- 
sified impulses  and  forces  and  desires  upon  one 
object  and  its  utter  obliviousness  to  all  other 
interests.  This  actually  in  some  measure  re- 
sembles the  single-minded,  world-forgetful  af- 
fection we  owe  to  God,  and  for  that  very  reason 
is  called  worship.  But  it  is  a  state  of  momen- 
tary, supernormal  exaltation,  which  cannot  last, 
because  in  the  creature  there  is  not  that  which 
will  justify  and  sustain  it.  Eternalize  this  and 
put  into  it  the  divine  instead  of  the  human,  and 


THE      WONDERFUL      TREE  23 

you  will  have  a  dim  image  of  what  the  mutual 
exclusiveness  of  devotion  between  God  and  man 
in  the  covenant  bond  implies.  Here  lies  the  in- 
fallible test  of  what  is  truly  religious  in  our  so- 
called  religion.  Everything  that  lacks  the 
unique  reference  to  God,  as  its  supreme  owner 
and  end,  is  automatically  ruled  out  from  that 
sphere.  Yea,  anything  that  is  cherished  and  cul- 
tivated apart  from  God  in  such  a  sense  that  we 
cannot  carry  it  with  us  in  the  Godward  move- 
ment of  our  life,  becomes  necessarily  a  hin- 
drance, a  profanation,  and  at  last  a  source  of 
idolatry.  Man's  nature  is  so  built  that  he  must 
be  religious  either  in  a  good  or  in  a  bad  sense. 
Ill-religious  he  may,  but  simply  non-religious  he 
cannot  be.  What  he  fails  to  bring  into  the  tem- 
ple of  God,  he  is  sure  to  set  up  on  the  outside, 
and  not  seldom  at  the  very  gate,  as  a  rival  ob- 
ject of  worship.  And  often  the  more  ostensibly 
spiritual  and  refined  these  things  are,  the  more 
potent  and  treacherous  their  lure.  The  modern 
man  who  seeks  to  save  and  perfect  himself  has 
a  whole  pantheon  of  ideals,  each  of  them  a  veri- 
table god  sapping  the  vitals  of  his  religion.  Nay, 
the  prophet  goes  even  farther  than  this :  Jehovah 
Himself  can  be  made  an  object  of  idolatry.  If 
one  fails  to  form  a  true  conception  of  his  char- 
acter and  weaves  into  the  mental  image  formed 
of  Him  the  false  features  gathered  from  other 
quasi-divine  beings,  then,  whatever  the  name 
employed,  be  it  God  or  Jehovah  or  even  "the 
Father,"  the  reality  of  the  divine  life  is  not  in  it. 
In  such  a  case  it  is  the  perverted  image  that 
evokes  the  worship,  instead  of  the  true  God. 


24  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

Hence  the  prophet  does  not  hesitate  to  place  the 
calf  of  Bethel,  in  which  all  Israel  meant  to  serve 
Jehovah,  on  a  line  with  the  idols  of  the  Canaan- 
ites,  and  to  call  it  outright  by  the  name  of  Baal. 
This  may  remind  us  that  the  rival  interest 
which  interferes  with  the  exclusiveness  of  our 
devotion  to  God  is  not  seldom  taken  from  the 
sphere  of  religion  itself.  Where  that  happens, 
the  most  insidious  form  of  adultery  ensues,  be- 
cause it  permits  the  delusion  to  remain  that 
with  an  undivided  heart  we  are  cleaving  to  the 
Lord.  Our  outgoing  activities,  our  good  works 
of  service,  our  concern  with  the  externals  of 
religion,  all  this,  unless  kept  in  the  closest,  most 
vital  contact  with  God  Himself,  will  inevitably 
tend  to  acquire  a  degree  of  detachment  and  in- 
dependence in  which  it  may  easily  withdraw 
from  God  the  consecration  that  ought  to  go  to 
and  the  satisfaction  that  ought  to  come  from 
Him  alone.  There  is  even  such  a  thing  as  wor- 
shipping one's  religion  instead  of  one^s  God. 
How  easily  the  mind  falls  into  the  habit  of 
merely  enlisting  God  as  an  ally  in  the  fight  for 
creature-betterment,  almost  oblivious  to  the 
fact  that  He  is  the  King  of  glory  for  whose  sake 
the  whole  world  exists  and  the  entire  battle  is 
waged !  Sometimes  it  is  difficult  not  to  feel  that 
God  is  reckoned  with,  chiefly  because  his  name 
and  prestige  and  resources  are  indispensable 
for  success  in  a  cause  that  really  transcends 
Him,  and  that  the  time  may  yet  come  when  as  a 
supernumerary  He  will  be  set  aside.  Is  it  not 
precisely  this  that  often  makes  the  atmosphere 
of  Christian  work  so  chill  and  uninspiring? 


THE      WONDERFUL      TREE  25 

Though  we  compel  the  feet  to  move  to  the  accel- 
erated pace  of  our  modern  religious  machinery, 
the  heart  is  atrophied  and  the  luke-warm  blood 
flows  sluggishly  through  our  veins.  Let  each 
one  examine  himself  whether  to  any  extent  he 
is  caught  in  the  whirl  of  this  centrifugal  move- 
ment. The  question,  though  searching,  is  an 
extremely  simple  one:  Do  we  love  God  for  his 
own  sake,  and  find  in  this  love  the  inspiration 
of  service,  or  do  we  patronize  Him  as  an  influ- 
ential partner  under  whose  auspices  we  can  bet- 
ter conduct  our  manifold  activities  in  the  ser- 
vice of  the  world  ?  It  was  not  said  with  a  man- 
ward  reference  alone,  that  if  one  should  bestow 
all  his  goods  to  feed  the  poor,  and  give  his  body 
to  be  burned,  and  not  have  love,  it  would  profit 
him  nothing.  That  which  is  necessary  to  hallow 
an  act  towards  our  neighbor  must  be  certainly 
indispensable  in  any  service  for  rendering  it 
sacrifice  well-pleasing  unto  God. 

In  the  third  place  the  fruition  of  Himself 
granted  by  God  to  us  is  individual.  There  can 
be  no  division  to  it;  each  must  of  necessity  re- 
ceive the  whole,  if  he  is  to  receive  it  at  all.  This 
follows  from  the  nature  of  the  gift  itself.  If 
the  gift  consisted  of  impersonal  values,  either 
material  or  spiritual,  the  supply  might  be  quan- 
titatively distributed  over  many  persons.  But 
being,  as  it  is,  the  personal  favor  of  God,  it  must 
be  poured  as  a  whole  into  the  receptacle  of  the 
human  heart.  The  parable  of  marriage  not  only 
teaches  that  the  covenant  relation  is  a  mono- 
gamic  one,  but  implies  besides  that  it  is  a  bond 
binding  unitary  soul  to  soul.    There  is  an  inner 


26  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

sanctuary  of  communion,  where  all  else  disap- 
pears from  sight,  and  the  believer  shut  in  with 
God  gazes  upon  his  loveliness,  and  appropriates 
Him,  as  though  outside  of  Him  nothing  mat- 
tered or  existed.  These  may  be  fugitive  mo- 
ments, and  they  may  be  rare  in  our  experience, 
but  we  surely  must  know  them,  if  God's  fruit- 
bearing  for  us  is  to  be  a  reality  in  our  lives.  The 
prophet  evidently  had  a  feeling  for  this,  al- 
though the  dispensation  of  the  covenant  under 
which  he  lived  made  it  far  more  difficult  to  at- 
tain than  in  our  time.  The  collective  method  of 
procedure  pursued  at  that  stage  related  every- 
thing in  the  first  instance  to  the  nation  of  Israel. 
To  it  belong  the  election,  the  love,  the  union  with 
God,  the  future.  It  is  quite  in  accordance  with 
this  that  Israel  as  a  body  appears  as  the  bride 
and  wife  of  Jehovah,  or  in  the  terms  of  a  differ- 
ent figure  as  the  son  He  has  called  out  of  Egypt. 
None  the  less  it  yields  a  pure  abstraction,  when 
this  is  carried  to  the  extreme  of  a  denial  of  every 
individual  bond  between  the  single  Israelite  and 
Jehovah.  On  the  basis  of  the  collective  relation- 
ship, in  which  the  many  unite  as  one,  there  must 
of  necessity  have  sprung  up  an  individual  at- 
tachment, in  which  the  single  believer  and 
Jehovah  directly  touched  each  other.  As  there 
was  private  sacrifice  alongside  of  the  public 
ritual  service,  so  there  must  have  flourished  per- 
sonal worship  and  affection  for  God  in  the  hearts 
of  the  pious.  The  devotional  fragrance  wafted 
to  us  from  so  many  a  page  in  the  Old  Testament 
bears  abundant  witness  to  this.  But,  while  no 
true  Israelite  could  be  entirely  without  this, 


THE      WONDERFUL      TREE  27 

there  existed  doubtless  many  degrees  in  the  in- 
dividualizing of  what  was  so  largely  a  common 
possession.  The  nature  of  the  prophetic  office 
brought  with  it  a  certain  detachment  from  the 
mass  and  a  peculiar  intimacy  with  Jehovah. 
And  yet  the  note  of  individualism  is  not  equally 
strong  in  all  the  prophets.  It  is  interesting  to 
observe  where  and  when  and  how  it  emerges. 
Its  two  great  exponents  before  the  exile  are 
Hosea  and  Jeremiah.  These  two  speak  not  only 
from  and  for  Jehovah  but  also  to  Jehovah.  They 
are  pre-eminently  the  prophets  of  prayer.  In 
the  case  of  each  there  appears  to  be  some  con- 
nection between  the  temperament  of  the  prophet 
and  the  cultivation  of  this  element.  Both  ex- 
ceptionally endowed  in  their  emotional  nature, 
they  instinctively  sought,  and  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Spirit  were  enabled  to  find,  what 
could  satisfy  this  deep  instinct.  Religion  as 
centered  in  the  heart  cannot  but  incline  towards 
individualism,  for  the  heart  with  its  hidden  feel- 
ings is  the  most  incapable  of  duplication  of  all 
the  factors  that  enter  into  it.  Belief  and  intent 
of  will  may  be  standardized;  the  emotional  re- 
action is  like  the  wind  of  heaven :  we  hear  the 
sound  thereof,  yet  know  not  whence  it  cometh 
nor  whither  it  goeth ;  so  it  is  vnth  the  world  of 
religious  feeling;  it  has  a  coloring  an'd  tone  of 
its  own  in  each  individual  child  of  God.  Hosea 
being  of  a  most  tender  and  impressionable  tem- 
perament was  on  that  account  chosen  to  secure 
for  the  covenant-bond  in  his  own  life,  and 
through  his  influence  in  the  life  of  others,  that 
sweet  privacy  and  inwardness  which  forms  the 


28  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

most  precious  possession  of  every  pious  soul. 
Here  lies  the  cause  of  that  vivid,  life-like  per- 
sonification to  which  the  prophet  subjects  the 
people  of  Israel,  putting  words  upon  their  lips 
expressing  a  mode  of  feeling  such  as,  strictly- 
speaking,  only  an  individual  can  experience.  It 
is  his  own  heart  that  the  prophet  has  put  into 
the  body  of  Israel.  The  construction  is  in  the 
plural,  but  the  spirit  is  in  the  singular,  and  it 
needs  only  to  be  translated  back  into  the  sing- 
ular, to  render  it  a  most  appropriate  speech  for 
every  believer  in  addressing  Jehovah:  "Come 
and  let  us  return  unto  Jehovah;  for  He  hath 
torn,  and  He  will  heal  us ;  He  hath  smitten  and 
He  will  bind  us  up.  After  two  days  will  He 
revive  us ;  on  the  third  day  He  will  raise  us  up, 
and  we  shall  live  before  Him.  And  let  us  know, 
let  us  follow  on  to  know  Jehovah:  His  going 
forth  is  sure  as  the  morning ;  and  He  will  come 
unto  us  as  the  rain,  as  the  latter  rain  that  water- 
eth  the  earth."  And  thus  the  prophet,  and 
through  him  doubtless  others,  had  the  wonder- 
ful experience  that  the  God  of  Israel  could  give 
Himself  to  a  single  person  with  the  same  indi- 
vidual interest  and  undivided  devotion,  as  if 
that  person  were  the  only  one  to  whom  His 
favor  extended.  This  is  necessary  to  complete 
the  fruition  of  God.  Every  child  of  God,  no 
matter  how  broad  his  vision  and  enlarged  his 
sympathies,  is  conscious  of  carrying  within  him- 
self a  private  sanctuary,  an  inner  guest-cham- 
ber of  the  heart,  where  he  desires  to  be  at  times 
alone  with  God  and  have  his  Savior  to  himself. 
So  instinctive  and  irrepressible  is  the  craving 


THE      WONDERFUL      TREE  29 

for  this,  that  it  may  easily  give  rise  to  a  sort  of 
spiritual  jealousy,  making  it  difficult  to  believe 
that  the  God  who  has  given  Himself  to  millions 
of  others  should  receive  us  alone  into  absolute 
intimacy  and  show  us  the  secret  of  His  cove- 
nant. Does  it  seem  improper  to  pray,  "Come 
Lord  to  me  alone,  and  close  the  door,  that  I  may 
have  Thee  to  myself  for  a  day  and  an  hour?" 
Should  this  feeling  come  to  us  and  perplex  us, 
the  best  way  to  meet  it  is  to  consider  the  exist- 
ence of  the  same  mystery  in  the  relation  of 
earthly  parents  to  their  children.  It  matters  not 
whether  there  be  one  or  ten,  each  child  has  the 
full  affection  of  the  father's  and  mother's  heart. 
If  we  that  are  creatures  can  experience  the 
working  of  this  miracle  in  our  finite  lives,  how 
much  more  can  the  infinite  God  be  present  to  a 
countless  number  of  souls  and  give  to  each  one 
of  them  the  same  ineffable  gift?  He  is  God  and 
not  man,  the  Holy  One,  both  in  our  midst  and  in 
our  hearts. 

Finally,  the  possession  and  enjoyment  of 
Jehovah  by  Israel  has  according  to  the  prophet 
a  transforming  effect.  Here  we  touch  upon  the 
greatest  wonder  in  our  fruition  of  God.  This 
tree,  unlike  the  probation-tree  of  paradise,  has 
the  veritable  power  of  making  manJike  unto 
God.  Those  who  dwell  together  in  the  holy  com- 
panionship of  the  covenant  grow  like  unto  each 
other.  There  is  a  magic  assimilative  influence 
in  all  the  spiritual  intimacies  of  life.  But  here 
the  mystery  is  deepest,  because  it  plays  between 
God  and  man.  It  works  in  both  directions:  as 
it  has  caused  God's  gift  of  Himself  to  us  to  as- 


30  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

sume  even  the  form  of  the  incarnation,  in  which 
He  became  flesh  of  our  flesh  and  bone  of  our 
bones,  so  in  the  opposite  direction  it  makes  us 
partakers  of  the  divine  nature,  putting  upon 
our  souls  God's  image  and  superscription.  This 
is  not,  of  course,  the  fusing  of  two  entities ;  such 
a  thought  lay  far  from  Hosea's  mind.  It  is  the 
interpenetration  of  the  two  conscious  lives  of 
God  and  man,  each  holding  the  other  in  the  close 
embrace  of  a  perfect  sympathy.  The  prophet 
has  developed  this  thought  also  in  connection 
with  the  marriage  idea.  As  the  wife  becomes 
like  unto  the  husband,  and  the  husband  unto  the 
wife,  through  the  daily  association  of  years,  so 
Israel,  the  wife  of  Jehovah,  is  bound  to  undergo 
an  inner  change  through  which  the  features  of 
God  are  slowly  but  surely  wrought  out  in  her 
character.  The  beauty  of  the  Lord  God  is  put 
upon  her.  This  law  works  with  absolute  neces- 
sity. The  prophet  traces  it  even  in  the  shame- 
ful pagan  cult,  which  in  other  respects  is  the 
caricature  of  the  true  religion  of  Israel.  Those 
who  come  to  Baal-Peor  and  consecrate  them- 
selves to  the  shameful  thing  become  abominable 
like  that  which  they  love.  The  principle  laid 
down  applies  to  all  idolatry,  open  or  disguised; 
whatever  man  substitutes  for  the  living  God  as 
an  object  of  his  supreme  devotion  not  only  turns 
into  his  master,  but  ends  with  becoming  a  super- 
imposed character  fashioning  him  irresistibly 
into  likeness  with  itself.  There  is  no  worship- 
per but  bears  the  image  of  his  God.  The  self- 
sovereignty  and  independence  affected  by  sin 
are  not  allowed  to  exist.    With  a  sure  nemesis 


THE      WONDERFUL      TREE  31 

religion  reclaims  its  own  and  in  each  one  of  its 
pseudo-forms  thrusts  man  back  into  the  attitude 
of  worship.  Likeness  to  God,  however,  is  not 
merely  the  effect  of  his  giving  Himself  to  us,  it 
is  also  the  condition  on  which  the  reality  of  such 
divine  self-communication  is  suspended.  To 
have  God  and  to  be  owned  by  God  in  the  pro- 
found covenant  sense  would  be  impossible  and 
result  in  doing  violence  to  the  nature  of  God  and 
man  alike,  if  the  character  of  man  could  not  be 
made  to  fit  into  the  nature  and  will  of  God.  The 
basis  of  all  religion  is  that  man  must  exist  in  the 
image  of  God.  Only  on  this  basis  can  the  fur- 
ther assimilation  proceed.  But  the  prophet  has 
given  this  thought  the  warm  baptism  of  affec- 
tion. A  power  of  conscious  love  is  at  work  in 
the  process.  To  bring  out  his  own  image  in 
Israel  is  the  delight  of  Israelis  lover  and  hus- 
band. This  is  the  reason  why  the  likeness  is 
represented  as  beginning  with  the  day  of  be- 
trothal, and  the  chief  qualities  entering  into  it 
appear  as  a  bridal  gift  from  God  to  Israel,  God 
giving  her,  as  it  were,  of  his  own  attributes: 
"I  will  betroth  thee  unto  me  in  righteousness 
and  in  justice,  in  lovingkindness  and  in  mercies, 
and  thou  shalt  know  Jehovah."  That  the  gift  is 
a  gift  of  likeness  appears  also  in  this,  that  it  is 
equivalent  to  the  knowledge  of  Jehovah.  Hence 
the  emphasis  thrown  on  the  need  of  knowledge 
in  Hosea's  prophecy.  God  is  declared  to  have 
known  Israel  in  the  wilderness,  in  the  land  of 
great  drought.  And  of  Israel  it  is  required, 
"Thou  shalt  know  no  God  but  me."  In  both  cases 
the  meaning  of  the  word  goes  far  beyond  the 


32  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

intellectual  sphere ;  to  know  is  not  a  mere  act  or 
process  of  becoming  informed,  but  an  act  of 
sympathetic  absorption  in  the  other's  character. 
It  describes  Jehovah's  original  choice  of  Israel 
as  a  most  affectionate  determination  of  what 
Israel  was  to  be,  and  the  attitude  of  the  people 
as  a  passionate  searching  after  the  perfec- 
tions of  the  divine  nature.  It  is  that  self-pro- 
jection of  the  lover  into  the  beloved  which  is 
more  than  knowledge  through  the  understand- 
ing. Hence  also  the  trait  of  eagerness  which 
the  prophet  ascribes  to  it.  It  is  not  a  state  of 
contentment,  but  partakes  of  the  extreme  rest- 
lessness of  love  in  motion :  "0  let  us  know,  let 
us  follow  on  to  know  Jehovah !"  This  is  to  such 
an  extent  the  heart  and  soul  of  the  marriage, 
that  the  one  great  adultery  consists  in  this :  that 
Israel  does  not  know,  and  does  not  care  to  know 
Jehovah.  For  that  is  to  fail  of  the  end  for  which 
the  covenant  exists ;  it  makes  the  marriage  idle 
and  fruitless.  And  finally,  my  hearers,  from 
this  falls  some  light  upon  the  mystery  that  a 
finite  creature  can  receive  and  possess  the  infi- 
nite God.  To  speak  of  giving  and  possession 
and  enjoyment  is  after  all  but  speaking  in  fig- 
ures. When  we  try  to  resolve  the  figure  into  the 
thing  itself,  the  reality  grows  so  great  and  deep 
that  it  transcends  our  minds,  and  we  must  re- 
sign ourselves  to  an  experience  without  under- 
standing. But  here  is  something  that  we  can  at 
least  make  relatively  clear  to  ourselves:  the 
fruition  of  God  consists  in  the  reception  by  us 
of  his  likeness  into  ourselves,  so  that  his  beauty 
of  character  becomes  literally   our   own.     So 


THE      WONDERFUL      TREE  33 

close  and  so  precious  an  identification  no  other 
love  can  dream  of  and  no  other  union  attain.  In 
it  the  fruit  and  the  tree  become  one ;  we  feel  and 
taste  that  the  Lord  is  for  our  delight.  And  when 
that  picture,  which  Hosea  saw  as  in  a  glass 
darkly  through  the  tracings  of  the  imagery  of 
lily  and  olive-tree  and  grain  and  wine,  when  that 
picture  shall  have  resolved  itself  for  us  into  the 
spiritual  realities  of  the  life  to  come,  then  also 
the  covenant  climax  will  have  been  reached, 
every  sacrament  shall  fall  away,  and  our  frui- 
tion shall  be  of  God  within  God ;  we  shall  at  last 
be  like  Him,  because  we  know  Him  as  He  is. 


II.    Hungering  and  Thirsting  After 
Righteousness 


The  Gospel  according  to  Mat- 
thew, V,  6:  "Blessed  are  they  that 
hunger  and  thirst  after  righteous- 
ness, for  they  shall  he  filled" 


HUNGERING      AND      THIRSTING  37 


T^HE  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  rightly  accorded 
a  chief  place  in  the  teaching  of  our  Lord.  It 
carries  a  weight  of  authority,  sets  an  ethical 
standard,  and  reveals  heights  and  depths  of  the 
religious  life,  nowhere  surpassed  in  the  Gospels. 
The  Evangelists  in  recording  it  seem  to  have 
been  aware  of  this.  Matthew  does  not,  as  on 
other  occasions,  introduce  the  discourse  with 
the  conventional  phrase  "Jesus  said,"  but  with 
the  quite  solemn  statement  "And  He  opened  his 
mouth,"  thus  giving  us  to  understand  that  the 
utterance  of  these  words  was  to  Jesus'  own 
mind  an  act  to  which  He  deliberately  proceeded. 
And  Luke  conveys  somewhat  of  the  same  im- 
pression by  the  introductory  statement,  "And 
He  lifted  up  his  eyes  on  the  disciples  and  said." 
Jesus  never  spoke  without  a  clear  sense  of  the 
consequence  with  which  his  words  were  fraught. 
And  blessed  is  the  preacher  of  whom  it  can  be 
truly  said  that  ministering  the  Word  of  God  is 
to  him  an  holy  task.  But,  while  the  sense  of  this 
was  always  present  with  our  Lord,  it  was  height- 
ened on  this  occasion.  This  was  the  first  time 
that  He  set  Himself  to  teach  His  disciples.  Here 
He  assumes  that  peculiar  ministry  of  breaking 
the  bread  of  life  for  his  own,  which  He  has  ever 
since  unceasingly  performed  through  the  ages, 
and  even  now  performs  for  us,  as  in  these  mo- 
ments we  gather  round  his  feet  to  receive  his 
teaching.   In  fact  it  is  here  for  the  first  time  that 


38  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

the  term  "disciples"  occurs  in  Matthew's  Gos- 
pel. Hence  also  the  statement  that  our  Lord 
"sat  down,"  and,  having  made  the  disciples  draw 
near,  so  taught  them.  The  sitting  posture,  with 
the  hearers  standing  around,  was  characteris- 
tic of  the  relation  between  teacher  and  pupils,  in 
distinction  from  the  standing  position,  marking 
the  prophet  or  gospel-herald. 

To  note  these  details  of  description  is  not 
of  merely  historical  interest,  but  also  of  prac- 
tical religious  importance,  because  it  may  warn 
us  at  the  outset  against  a  view  all  too  commonly 
prevailing  concerning  the  purpose  of  this  "Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount."  The  sermon  is  often  rep- 
resented as  a  succinct  summary  of  Jesus'  mes- 
sage. It  passes  for  an  epitome  of  Christianity, 
the  teststone  of  what  is  essential  to  our  religion. 
All  that  is  not  here,  we  are  told,  can  without 
detriment  be  neglected.  Every  later  type  of 
Christian  life  and  teaching  is  to  be  judged,  not 
by  the  standard  of  Scripture  as  a  whole,  nor 
even  by  the  authority  of  the  words  of  Christ  as  a 
whole,  but  by  the  content  of  this  one  discourse. 
This  deplorable  error  is  due  to  more  than  one 
cause.  The  beauty  and  glory  of  truth  concen- 
trated here  may  easily  beget  a  feeling  that  all 
else  in  the  New  Testament  is  in  comparison  of 
minor  value.  A  second  motive  coming  into  play 
is  that  many  people  in  the  matter  of  religious 
belief  wholly  abandon  themselves  to  their  un- 
governed  tastes  and  feelings.  They  scorn  every 
hard  and  fast  rule  of  faith  and  practice.  Even 
submission  to  the  indiscriminate  teaching  of 
Jesus  they  find  distasteful.    At  the  same  time, 


HUNGERING      AND      THIRSTING  39 

unwilling  to  appear  entirely  emancipated  from 
all  historical  bonds  of  faith,  they  fall  back  upon 
some  choice  portion  of  the  Gospel,  preferably 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  cling  to  it  as  to 
the  last  remaining  shreds  of  the  garment  of 
creed,  barely  sufficient  to  cover  the  nakedness  of 
their  subjectivity.  It  is  thus  that  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  has  become  the  creed  of  the  creed- 
less.  But  by  far  the  most  influential  force  driv- 
ing people  to  such  a  view  comes  from  the  flat- 
tery it  supplies  to  the  natural  man.  It  flatters 
him  by  taking  for  granted  that  he  needs  no  more 
than  the  presentation  of  this  high  ideal,  and 
that  Jesus  does  him  the  honor  of  thinking  him 
capable  of  realizing  it  by  his  own  natural  good- 
ness. And,  last  of  all,  it  is  not  so  much  what 
people  find  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  it  is 
what  they  congratulate  themselves  upon  not 
finding  there,  that  renders  them  thus  enamored 
of  its  excellence.  It  is  because  they  dislike  the 
story  of  the  helplessness  of  sin,  of  man^s  utter 
condemnation  in  the  sight  of  God,  and  the  insist- 
ence upon  the  necessity  of  the  cross,  it  is  because 
of  all  this  that  they  evince  such  eagerness  to 
adopt  as  their  exclusive  creed  a  portion  of  the 
Gospel  from  which  in  their  opinion  these  offen- 
sive things  are  absent.  Now  all  such  forget  that 
both  Jesus  and  the  Evangelist  expressly  relate 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  to  the  disciples,  and 
consequently  place  back  of  what  is  described  in 
it  the  process  of  becoming  a  disciple,  the  whole 
rich  relationship  of  saving  approach  and  re- 
sponsive faith,  of  calling  and  repentance  and 
pardon  and  acceptance   and   the   following  of 


40  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

Jesus,  all  that  makes  the  men  and  women  of  the 
Gospel  such  disciples  and  Jesus  such  a  Lord  and 
Savior  as  this  and  other  records  of  his  teach- 
ing imply.  It  is  therefore  folly  to  insist  that  no 
specific  doctrine  of  salvation  is  here.  It  is  pres- 
ent as  a  living  doctrine  incarnate  in  the  Person 
of  Jesus.  We  are  apt  to  forget  that  in  the  days 
of  our  Lord's  flesh  there  was  no  need  for  that 
explicit  teaching  about  the  Christ  found  in  the 
Epistles  of  the  New  Testament.  At  that  time 
He,  the  real  Christ,  walked  among  men  and  ex- 
hibited in  his  intercourse  with  sinners  more  im- 
pressively than  any  abstract  doctrine  could  have 
done  the  principles  and  the  process  of  salvation. 
If  we  have  but  eyes  to  see,  we  shall  find  our 
Savior  in  the  out-door  scenes  of  the  Gospels  no 
less  than  within  the  walls  of  the  school  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans.  And  we  shall  find  Him 
too  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  For  this  dis- 
course throughout  pre-supposes  that  the  dis- 
ciples here  instructed  became  associated  with 
Jesus  as  sinners  needing  salvation,  and  that 
their  whole  life  in  continuance  is  lived  on  the 
basis  of  grace.  At  the  beginning  stand  the 
beatitudes,  engraven  in  golden  script  upon  its 
portal,  reminding  us  that  we  are  not  received  by 
Jesus  into  a  school  of  ethics  but  into  a  kingdom 
of  redemption.  It  is  blessedness  that  is  prom- 
ised here,  and  the  word  does  not  so  much  signify 
a  state  of  mind,  as  that  great  realm  of  consum- 
mation and  satisfaction,  which  renders  man's 
existence,  once  he  has  entered  into  it,  serene  and 
secure  for  evermore.  And  again,  foremost 
among  the  beatitudes  stand  those  that  empha- 


HUNGERING      AND      THIRSTING  41 

size  the  emptiness,  the  absolute  dependence  of 
man  upon  divine  grace.  As  at  the  dawn  of  the 
gospel  Mary  sang:  "He  has  put  down  princes 
from  their  thrones,  and  has  exalted  them  of  low 
degree;  the  hungry  He  has  filled  with  good 
things  and  the  rich  He  has  sent  empty  away," 
so  here  those  pronounced  blessed  are  the  poor 
in  spirit,  the  mourners,  the  meek,  and  they 
that  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness. 
It  is  in  no  wise  to  the  self-satisfied  mind  that 
the  Lord  addresses  Himself;  his  call  is  not  a  call 
to  exertion,  not  even  to  exertion  in  holiness;  it 
were  too  little  to  say  that  it  is  an  invitation  to 
receive;  it  goes  farther  than  that;  it  amounts 
to  the  declaration  that  the  consciousness  of  hav- 
ing nothing,  absolutely  nothing,  is  the  certain 
pledge  of  untold  enrichment.  So  much  is  salva- 
tion a  matter  of  giving  on  God's  part  that  its 
best  subjects  are  those  in  whom  his  grace  of 
giving  can  have  its  perfect  work.  The  poor  in 
spirit,  those  that  mourn,  the  meek  and  the  hun- 
gry, these  are  made  to  pass  before  our  eyes  as  so 
many  typical  forms  of  its  embodiment.  And  be- 
cause this  is  so,  they  are  here  also  introduced 
as  having  the  promise  of  the  infinite.  To  be  a 
child  of  God  and  a  disciple  of  Jesus  means  to 
hold  in  one's  hand  the  treasures  of  eternity. 
Look  for  a  moment  at  the  second  clauses  of  these 
beatitudes.  Some  of  the  things  spoken  of  may, 
in  a  relative  sense,  be  obtained  in  the  present 
life.  Comfort  and  mercy  and  the  vision  of  God 
and  sonship  are  bestowed  during  our  pilgrim- 
age on  earth.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however, 
these  things  are  here  held  in  prospect  not  in 


42  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

relative  but  in  absolute  measure.  In  the  con- 
summate life  only  can  it  become  true  that  the 
meek  inherit  the  earth,  that  the  eyes  of  the  pure 
behold  the  beatific  vision  of  God,  that  the  hun- 
gry and  thirsty  are  satisfied  with  righteousness. 
This  absolute  character  of  the  promise  writes 
the  principle  of  redemption  large  on  the  face  of 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  To  join  together 
after  this  manner  creature-emptiness  and  the 
riches  of  divine  benediction  is  the  prerogative  of 
God  the  Savior.  So  long  as  this  voice  of  the 
beatitudes  is  distinctly  heard,  it  will  not  be  pos- 
sible to  find  any  other  religion  here  than  the 
religion  of  salvation  through  the  grace  of  God 
in  Christ. 

But  is  it  not  true,  you  are  perhaps  inclined  to 
ask,  that  at  least  from  the  words  of  our  text  the 
opposite  view  receives  a  measure  of  support? 
"Righteousness"  —  in  this  word  certainly  the 
stress  seems  to  be  laid  on  ethical  conduct  with- 
out any  particular  admixture  of  the  redemptive 
element.  Men  are  willing  to  admit  that,  so  far 
as  the  specifically  religious  qualities  are  con- 
cerned, our  attitude  must  be  a  receptive  one, 
leaving  all  the  energizing  to  God.  When,  how- 
ever, the  sphere  of  the  moral  life  is  reached,  the 
principle  seems  no  longer  to  apply,  this  being 
the  field  of  co-operation  between  the  divine  and 
the  human.  That  people  are  rash  to  draw  such 
a  conclusion  is  partly  due  to  the  modish  social 
coloring  which  the  term  "righteousness"  re- 
ceives at  the  present  day.  But  we  may  not  de- 
termine its  meaning  for  our  text  in  the  light  of 
this  modern  association.    The  important  ques- 


HUNGERING      AND      THIRSTING  43 

tion  to  answer  is  what  meaning  the  word  car- 
ried to  the  mind  of  Jesus.  As  soon  as  this  is 
done,  we  shall  soon  discover  that  no  greater  mis- 
take could  be  made  from  Jesus'  point  of  view 
than  to  assume  that  in  the  matter  of  righteous- 
ness the  divine  is  less  and  the  human  more  than 
in  other  relations.  It  would  be  crude,  to  be  sure, 
straightway  to  inject  into  our  text  the  doctrine 
of  Paul  according  to  which  righteousness  is 
something  wrought  out  in  Christ  and  trans- 
ferred to  us  by  imputation.  And  yet,  it  would 
be  a  far  more  serious  mistake  to  suppose  that 
our  Lord's  idea  of  righteousness  and  that  of 
Paul  differed  in  principle  and  did  not  grow  from 
the  same  root.  There  need  be  no  difficulty  in 
showing  that  Jesus,  and  in  fact  all  preceding 
revelation,  carefully  laid  the  basis  for  this 
crowning  structure  of  Apostolic  revelation.  In 
order  to  do  this  let  us  note  in  the  first  place  that 
righteousness  is  in  Scripture  an  idea  saturated 
with  the  thought  of  God.  Throughout  the  Old 
Testament  this  is  so.  It  is  a  commonplace  of  its 
teaching,  especially  in  the  prophets,  that  there 
can  be  no  true  obedience  of  heart  and  life  with- 
out the  constant  presence  to  the  mind  of  man  of 
the  thought  of  Jehovah.  Not  only  is  ethics  with- 
out religion  a  fragmentary  thing;  even  more 
important  is  the  principle  that  in  such  a  case  it 
lacks  the  true  quality  of  right,  the  inner  essence 
of  what  renders  it  conformable  to  its  very  idea. 
Righteousness  is  the  opposite  of  sin,  and  as  the 
reference  to  God  is  inseparable  from  the  con- 
ception of  sin,  so  the  reference  to  God  is  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  manner  inherent  in  the  idea  of 
righteousness.    To  put  it  very  plainly:    If  there 


44  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

were  no  God  to  see  and  judge  and  punish,  one 
might  perhaps  still  continue  to  speak  of  good 
and  evil,  meaning  thereby  what  is  beneficial  or 
injurious,  subject  to  the  approval  or  disapproval 
of  men,  but  it  would  be  meaningless  to  speak  of 
sin  on  such  a  supposition.  And  so,  by  equal  rea- 
soning, while  what  is  commonly  called  good 
might  without  the  existence  of  God  be  conceiv- 
able in  the  world,  yet  it  could  not  properly  bear 
the  name  of  righteousness,  for  the  simple  reason 
that,  in  order  to  deserve  this  name,  according  to 
the  Biblical  way  of  thinking,  it  needs  first  to  be 
placed  in  the  light  of  the  divine  nature,  the 
divine  will,  the  divine  judgment.  At  the  very 
birth  of  the  people  of  God  this  principle  was 
embedded  deep  in  their  life,  when  God  said  to 
Abraham :  "I  am  El-Shaddai,  walk  thou  before 
me,  then  shalt  thou  be  blameless."  To  walk  be- 
fore God  means  so  to  walk  as  to  have  the  thought 
of  God's  presence  and  supervision  constantly  in 
mind,  and  to  shape  one's  conduct  accordingly. 
Our  Lord's  whole  teaching  on  the  subject  of 
righteousness  is  but  one  emphatic  re-afl[irmation 
and  further  development  of  the  same  principle. 
Although  the  religious  atmosphere  in  his  day 
was  surcharged  with  the  notions  of  law-keeping 
and  merit  and  retribution,  there  was  lacking  the 
vivid  consciousness  of  God  as  a  perpetual  wit- 
ness and  interested  participant  in  every  moral 
transaction.  The  automaton  of  the  law  had 
taken  the  place  of  the  living  God.  Well  might 
our  Lord  quote  the  words  of  the  prophet  Isaiah : 
"This  people  honoreth  me  with  their  lips,  but 
their  heart  is  far  from  me."  Alas,  this  fault 
with  which  Jesus  had  to  contend  is  not  so  ex- 


HUNGERING      AND      THIRSTING  45 

clusively  peculiar  to  the  spirit  of  that  age  as  we 
might  perhaps  be  inclined  to  assume.  A  Jew 
lives  in  you  and  me  and  in  every  human 
heart  by  nature.  If  we  ever  were  tempted  to 
think  ourselves  able  to  fulfill  the  law  of  God,  was 
it  not  perhaps  for  this  reason — that  the  sense  of 
God's  absolute  claim  upon  us  and  knowledge  of 
us  had  become  dim  to  our  conscience?  Since, 
then,  this  fault  reappears  in  every  sinner,  the 
Preacher  of  the  Mount  repeats  his  sermon  in 
the  ears  of  each  generation.  He  stands  to  plead 
the  right  of  God,  no  matter  what  substitutes  for 
Him  we  may  have  put  up  in  our  lives,  nay  not 
even  though  it  were,  as  in  the  case  of  Judaism, 
a  counterfeit  of  God's  own  law.  And,  great 
physician  that  He  is.  He  directs  his  probe 
straight  to  the  root  of  the  disease.  Christ  drives 
us  back  into  the  inner  chambers  of  our  con- 
sciousness, where  God  and  we  are  alone,  and 
good  and  evil  assume  a  proportion  and  signifi- 
cance never  dreamt  of  before.  The  law  in  the 
hands  of  Jesus  becomes  alive  with  God's  own 
personality.  Majestic  and  authoritative.  He  is 
present  in  every  commandment,  so  absolute  in 
his  demands,  so  observant  of  our  conduct,  so  in- 
tent upon  the  outcome,  that  the  thought  of  giv- 
ing to  Him  less  than  heart  and  soul  and  mind 
and  strength  in  the  product  of  our  moral  life 
ceases  to  be  tolerable  to  ourselves.  Much  has 
been  preached  and  written  about  the  internal 
character  of  the  law-observance  which  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount  requires.  Truly,  it  does  teach 
with  powerful  emphasis  that  the  righteousness 
is  in  the  intent  and  disposition,  not  first  in  the 


46  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

outward  act,  just  as  the  sin  is  not  committed 
first  when  the  hand  reaches  out  to  strike,  but 
when  anger  surges  up  in  the  heart.  But  we 
do  not,  I  am  afraid,  realize  with  sufficient  clear- 
ness what  is  the  ultimate  reason  for  this  inter- 
nalizing emphasis.  Why  are  evil  and  good  with 
such  insistency  pushed  back  into  the  region  of 
the  heart?  The  reason  is  none  other  than  that 
in  the  heart  man  confronts  God.  In  the  recesses 
of  the  inner  man,  where  deep  calls  unto  deep, 
where  the  Lawgiver  and  the  creature  are  face 
to  face,  there  and  there  alone  the  issue  of 
righteousness  and  of  sin  can  be  decided.  Nor 
does  this  merely  mean  that  the  conscience  is 
brought  under  the  direct  gaze  and  control  of  the 
will  of  God.  It  is  the  divine  nature  lying  back 
of  the  divine  will  in  the  light  of  which  the 
creature  is  led  to  place  itself.  The  inner 
man  enters,  if  we  may  so  speak,  into  the  inner 
forum  of  the  Most  High.  There  God,  besides  re- 
quiring obedience  to  his  will,  is  heard  to  ask  con- 
formity to  his  moral  nature.  The  law  is  per- 
ceived to  coincide  with  what  He  is.  The  majesty, 
the  inevitableness,  the  self-evidencing  and  self- 
enforcing  power  of  the  eternal  are  put  into 
it.  To  fulfill  the  law  becomes  but  an- 
other form  of  the  imperative,  to  be  like  unto 
God.  It  is  God's  inalienable  right  as  God  to  im- 
press his  character  upon  us,  to  make  and  keep 
us  reflectors  of  his  infinite  glory.  But  in  a  state 
of  sin  this  can  only  intensify  a  thousand  times 
the  consciousness  of  man's  utter  inability  even 
to  begin  to  realize  what  nevertheless  is  the  very 
core  of  his  end  in  life,  the  sole  ultimate  reason 


HUNGERING      AND      THIRSTING  47 

for  his  existence.  Thus  apprehended  the  range 
and  scope  of  the  moral  circle  drawn  around  our 
being  become  enormous,  so  much  so  indeed  that 
they  would  almost  seem  to  exceed  the  possibili- 
ties of  frail  human  nature.  So  long  as  man^s 
moral  life  is  not  illumined  by  this  central  glory 
of  the  nature  of  God,  it  may  remain  possible  for 
the  illusion  to  spring  up  that  the  sinner  can  at 
least  aspire  towards  fulfilment  of  the  law. 
He  then  imagines  that  the  command  is 
relaxed  and  lowered  to  the  limitations  of  his 
abnormal  state.  The  limitless  perspective, 
all  that  makes  for  the  eternal  seriousness  and 
solemnity  of  the  values  of  righteousness  and  sin, 
are  forgotten.  "To  be  righteous"  acquires  the 
restricted  meaning  of  being  law-like,  instead  of 
God-like.  Sin  also  loses  its  absolute  character 
of  disharmony  with  the  divine  nature.  It  ap- 
pears a  mere  shortness  in  one^s  account,  easily 
rectifiable  by  future  extra-payments.  To  all  this 
delusion  Jesus  puts  an  end  by  the  simple  word : 
"Ye  shall  be  perfect  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is 
perfect,"  and :  "Thus  shall  ye  pray :  Thy  will  be 
done,  as  in  heaven  so  on  earth."  And,  still  fur- 
ther, the  purpose  of  this  demand  of  God-like- 
ness is  not  to  be  primarily  sought  in  the  desir- 
ability for  man  of  patterning  himself  after  the 
highest  example ;  it  has  its  deeper  ground  in  the 
right  of  God  to  possess  and  use  us  as  instru- 
ments for  the  revelation  of  his  supreme  glory. 
If  God  desires  to  mirror  Himself  in  us,  can  it 
behoove  man  to  offer  Him  less  than  a  perfect  re- 
flection? Shall  we  say,  that  He  must  overlook 
the  little  blemishes,  the  minor  sins,  the  mixed 


48  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

aspirations,  the  half-hearted  efforts,  must  take 
the  will  for  the  deed,  and  an  imperfect  will  at 
that?  Or  shall  we  confess  with  the  speaker  in 
Job  that  the  heavens  are  not  clean  in  his  sight? 
Once  this  point  of  view  is  adopted,  our  whole 
estimate  of  sin  and  righteousness  undergoes  a 
radical  change.  We  then  begin  to  measure  and 
appraise  them  in  their  bearing  on  God  and  their 
value  for  Him.  Obedience  becomes  sacrifice ;  the 
light  that  is  in  us  no  longer  shines  for  our  own 
delectation,  but  in  order  that  through  the  per- 
ception of  our  good  works  by  men  glory  may 
come  to  our  Father  in  heaven.  Here  lies  also  the 
reason  why,  notwithstanding  all  the  emphasis 
placed  on  the  secretness  and  inwardness  of  right- 
eousness, our  Lord  none  the  less  insists  upon  the 
necessity  of  works  as  essential  to  the  issue  of 
the  moral  process.  Because  it  does  not  exist 
for  itself,  therefore  the  right  must  leap  to  the 
light  of  day.  Jesus,  no  more  than  Paul,  would 
have  assented  to  the  view  that  in  sanctification 
the  good  will  or  intention  is  the  sole  thing  re- 
quired. The  tree  of  righteousness  is  planted  in 
us  by  God  for  his  own  sake,  and  consequently 
He  delights  in  its  blossoms  and  desires  to  eat  of 
its  fruit. 

We  have  now  explored  a  little  of  the  length 
and  breadth  and  height  and  depth  of  what  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  proclaims  as  the  whole 
duty  of  man.  The  task  of  fulfilling  this  is  so 
stupendous  that  a  sinless  being  might  almost 
contemplate  it  with  misgiving.  Where,  then,  shall 
the  ungodly  and  sinner  appear?  Can  our  Lord 
have  meant  that  it  is  even  remotely  possible  for 


HUNGERING      AND      THIRSTING  49 

the  disciple  by  his  own  strength  to  attain  unto 
this?  Our  text  implies  the  very  opposite.  No, 
not  the  possession  of  such  a  righteousness  is 
characteristic  of  the  members  of  the  kingdom, 
but  that  they  hunger  and  thirst  after  it.  Notice 
sharply  the  implications  of  the  striking  figure 
employed.  It  implies,  of  course,  in  the  first  place 
that  the  disciple  has  not  in  himself,  and  is  con- 
scious of  not  having,  the  thing  described.  That, 
hov^ever,  is  only  the  negative  side ;  to  the  absence 
there  corresponds  the  desire  for  its  presence. 
And  a  very  specific  kind  of  desire  is  referred  to. 
Its  strength  is  emphasized,  and  that  not  merely 
in  general,  but  in  the  very  particular  sense  of 
its  being  an  elemental  desire,  a  life-craving,  in 
which  the  deepest  instincts  of  the  disciple  as- 
sert themselves.  To  hunger  and  thirst  after  a 
thing  means  the  recognition  that  without  that 
thing  there  can  be  no  life.  It  involves  that  in 
this  one  desire  and  its  satisfaction  the  whole 
meaning  of  life  is  centered,  that  the  whole 
energy  of  life  is  directed  towards  it,  that 
the  goal  of  life  is  identified  with  it.  To  the 
sense  of  this  fundamental  spiritual  craving 
all  other  things  are  obliterated.  As  to  the 
hungry  and  thirsty  gold  and  silver  become 
worthless,  so  to  the  disciple  in  whom  this 
desire  has  awakened,  the  wealth  of  the  universe, 
were  he  offered  it,  would  have  no  attraction. 
And  let  us  remember  that  this  intensified  desire 
has  for  its  object  the  righteousness  of  God  as 
previously  described.  What  renders  this  thing 
desirable  is  the  vision  of  it  as  associated  with 
God.    In  its  ultimate  analysis  it  is  the  passion 


50  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

for  God  Himself.  Here  is  the  cry  of  the  Psalm- 
ist :  "Whom  have  I  in  heaven  but  Thee,  and  there 
is  none  upon  earth  that  I  desire  besides  Thee," 
translated  into  terms  of  ethics.  Still  further, 
the  form  of  hunger  and  thirst  which  the  desire 
assumes  presupposes  the  clearest  conceivable 
perception  of  the  nature  of  its  object.  As  there 
is  no  more  vivid  picture  of  the  nourishing  and 
refreshing  power  of  food  and  drink  than  that 
which  stands  before  the  imagination  of  a  hun- 
gry and  thirsty  person,  so  there  is  no  truer,  no 
more  adequate  reproduction  of  God's  own  idea 
of  righteousness  than  that  which  exists  in  the 
mind  that  hungers  and  thirsts  after  the  manner 
here  portrayed.  Herein  lies  one  of  the  chief 
glories  of  the  work  of  redemption,  that  it  pro- 
duces in  the  heart  and  mind  of  the  sinner  such 
a  profound,  ineffaceable  impression  of  the  reali- 
ties in  God.  Nothing  will  lay  so  bare  the  foun- 
dations of  our  relationship  to  Him  as  the  ex- 
perience of  salvation.  The  thing  spoken  of  in 
the  text  appears  nowhere  else  in  such  an  in- 
tense form  as  it  does  through  its  connection 
with  sin.  The  beginning  of  hungering  and 
thirsting  after  righteousness  lies  in  the  birth  of 
conviction  of  sin.  In  fact  the  presence  of  this 
element  in  it  is  what  distinguishes  true,  deep  re- 
pentance from  every  kind  of  superficial  regret 
for  the  secondary  consequences  of  sin.  True  re- 
pentance strips  sin  of  all  that  is  accidental.  It 
resembles  an  inner  chamber  where  no  one  and 
nothing  else  is  admitted  except  God  and  the  sin- 
ner and  his  sin.  Into  that  chamber  all  the  great 
penitents  like  David  and  Paul  and  Augustine 


HUNGERING      AND      THIRSTING  51 

and  Luther  have  entered,  and  each  one  in  the 
bitter  anguish  of  his  soul  has  borrowed  the 
words  of  the  Psalmist:  "Against  Thee,  Thee 
only  have  I  sinned,  and  done  this  evil  in  thy 
sight,  that  Thou  mightest  be  justified  when  Thou 
speakest,  and  be  clear  when  Thou  judgest."  A 
repentant  sinner  acquits  God  and  condemns  him- 
self. And  for  the  very  reason  that  his  conscious- 
ness of  sin  is  God-centered,  he  is  also  alive  to  its 
inward  seriousness.  He  learns  to  trace  it 
in  the  recesses  and  abysses  of  his  inmost  life, 
where  even  the  eye  of  self -scrutiny  would  other- 
wise scarcely  penetrate,  but  in  which  the  eyes  of 
God  are  at  home,  where  all  our  iniquities  stand 
naked  before  Him  and  our  secret  sins  in  the 
light  of  his  countenance.  If  it  is  characteristic 
of  sin  to  excuse  itself,  it  is  no  less  characteristic 
of  repentance  to  scorn  all  subterfuge  and  to 
judge  of  itself,  as  it  were,  with  the  very  veracity 
of  God.  Herein  indeed  is  shown  the  first  grace 
of  God  to  an  awakened  sinner  that  He  lets  in 
upon  the  soul  this  cleansing  flood  of  moral  truth. 
It  is  a  painful  experience,  but  even  through  the 
pain  the  penitent  feels  that  his  relation  towards 
God  has  been  in  principle  rectified,  that  the  sor- 
row of  repentance  is  a  sorrow  after  God  Him- 
self. Without  that  much  of  faith  there  is  no  re- 
pentance, by  that  much  of  faith  gracious  re- 
pentance differs  from  the  remorse  of  the 
hopelessly  lost.  And  from  such  saving  peni- 
tence there  is  but  one  more  step  to  the  recogni- 
tion that  the  claims  of  the  divine  righteousness 
in  their  widest  extent  must  be  satisfied.  To  a 
mind  thus  disposed  the  thought  of  atonement  is 


52  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

no  longer  an  offense  or  foolishness,  but  some- 
thing commending  itself  by  its  inherent  justice. 
The  doctrine  of  satisfaction  ages  before  it  was 
elaborated  by  religious  thinkers  had  vindicated 
itself,  as  it  still  continues  to  do,  to  thousands  of 
hearts  in  the  bitter  theology  of  repentance.  The 
fact  of  sin,  while  as  such  irrevocably  accom- 
plished, yet  so  far  as  the  guilt  is  concerned  must 
be  undone,  if  God  is  to  remain  the  God  of  sin- 
ners. Here  the  truth  taught  by- Jesus  leads 
directly  to  Paul's  doctrine  of  atonement  and 
justification.  To  the  heart  that  has  had  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  interpreted  to  itself  by  the 
Holy  Spirit  there  is  no  other  solution  and  refuge 
than  the  cross  underneath  which  Paul  found 
shelter.  To  such  as  hunger  and  thirst  after 
righteousness  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  Man  is 
meat  and  his  blood  is  drink,  indeed. 

But  the  principle  expressed  in  our  text 
reaches  still  farther  out.  The  hungering  and 
thirsting  most  assuredly  also  include  a  desire  to 
exhibit  the  righteousness  of  discipleship  in  a 
sanctified  life.  And  this  Christian  pursuit  of 
holiness  likewise  is  centered  in  God.  It  is  not 
as  if  in  justification  the  divine  grace,  and  in 
sanctification  human  endeavor,  were  the  sole 
factor  to  be  reckoned  with.  Much  rather  in 
sanctification  itself  the  old  alternative  again  pre- 
sents itself,  whether  in  all  its  parts,  in  the  acting 
upon  by  God  and  in  the  being  moved  to  re- 
sponsive action  of  the  believer,  the  divine  glory 
or  human  merit  shall  be  the  principal  concern. 
There  is  a  striving  after  moral  excellence  in 
which  the  selfish  sinful  nature  most  vigorously 


HUNGERING      AND      THIRSTING  53 

reasserts  itself,  involving  merely  a  transition 
from  the  gross  and  carnal  to  the  more  refined 
and  elusive  type  of  sin.  The  true  disciple  does 
not  seek  to  be  made  better  for  his  own  glory  but 
in  the  interest  and  for  the  glory  of  God.  He 
feels  with  Paul  that  he  must  apprehend,  because 
he  was  apprehended  for  that  very  purpose.  The 
image  of  God  restored  in  the  soul  cannot  help 
turning  back  towards  its  original.  The  new  man 
is  created  after  God  in  righteousness  and  holi- 
ness of  truth.  The  believer,  therefore,  sancti- 
fies himself,  that  God's  purpose  may  not  be  frus- 
trated in  him,  but  find  glorious  fruition.  Only 
he  does  so  in  constant  reliance  on  divine  grace. 
It  were  a  mistake  to  confine  the  province  of  faith 
to  justification.  All  progress  in  holiness  depends 
on  it.  It  is  the  element,  the  atmosphere  in  which 
the  Christian  lives,  that  which  imparts  to  his 
works  their  sacrificial  character  and  makes  them 
pleasing  to  God.  And,  because,  thanks  to  God, 
it  is  deeper  in  him  than  his  deepest  sin,  even 
when  he  fails  and  falls,  he  does  not  despair,  nor 
is  utterly  forsaken.  God's  witness  remains  in 
him ;  he  can  say  with  Peter :  "Lord,  Thou  know- 
est  all  things.  Thou  knowest  that  I  love  Thee!" 
Finally,  the  Lord  here  assures  the  hungry 
and  thirsty  ones,  that  they  shall  be  satisfied. 
Every  instinctive  desire,  when  normal,  carries 
in  itself  the  knowledge  that  there  is  that  which 
can  satisfy  it.  The  great  gifts  of  God  and  the 
great  desires  of  life  have  been  created  for  each 
other,  and  call  for  each  other.  If  this  be  true  in 
the  natural  world,  it  is  equally  true  in  the  spirit- 
ual world,  in  the  sphere  of  redemption.    The 


54  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

craving  described  in  our  text  is  a  prophecy;  it 
tells  of  a  law  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  a  sure 
creative  appointment,  out  of  which,  twin-chil- 
dren of  the  divine  grace,  the  hunger  after 
righteousness  and  the  righteousness  itself  are 
born.  It  is  God,  and  God  alone,  who  can  produce 
in  the  deepest  heart  of  man  a  thing  so  instinctive 
as  what  is  here  spoken  of.  No  sinner  can  give 
this  to  himself.  If  we  feel  it  at  all,  to  however 
slight  a  degree,  it  is  from  no  other  cause  than 
that  the  love  of  God  has  found  us,  and  the  breath 
of  the  Spirit  Creator  has  blown  upon  us,  quick- 
ening us  into  newness  of  life.  If  this  were  a  de- 
sire artificially  awakened  or  stimulated  by  man, 
there  could  be  no  assurance  of  either  the  exist- 
ence or  the  satisfying  character  of  its  object. 
Even  in  the  case  of  our  noblest  and  most  ele- 
vating desires  after  the  creature,  we  too  often 
make  sad  experience  of  the  failure  of  our  ideals 
to  meet  the  expectation.  The  reason  is  that  in 
our  dreams  we  ourselves  are  the  creators  of  the 
excellence  we  crave,  and  because  we  cannot  also 
create  the  satisfaction,  we  hunger  in  vain.  But 
it  is  different  here.  He  that  gave  the  thirst  like- 
wise provides  the  water,  and  the  one  exactly 
meets  the  other.  It  is  not  the  will  of  our  Heaven- 
ly Father  that  any  longing  in  our  hearts, 
prompted  by  Himself,  and  therefore  sincerely 
seeking  Him,  shall  perish  unsatisfied.  A  satisfy- 
ing righteousness  therefore  must  be  provided 
for  the  people  of  God.  And  it  must  be  provided 
outside  of  us.  To  eat  means  to  be  nourished 
from  without.  Since  the  sinner  is  devoid  of  all 
righteousness,  it  is  self-evident,  that  the  source 


HUNGERING      AND      THIRSTING  55 

of  his  supply  must  be  sought  beyond  the  confines 
of  his  own  evil  and  empty  nature.  For  it  to  be 
otherwise  would  mean  that  hunger  could  be 
stilled  with  hunger.  Our  Lord's  meaning  ob- 
viously is  that  the  coming  order  of  things,  the 
new  kingdom  of  God,  brings  with  itself,  chief  of 
all  blessings,  a  perfect  righteousness,  as  truly 
and  absolutely  the  gift  of  God  to  man  as  is  the 
entire  kingdom.  What  is  true  of  the  kingdom, 
that  no  human  merit  can  deserve,  no  human 
effort  call  it  into  being,  applies  with  equal  force 
to  the  righteousness  that  forms  its  center.  It  is 
God's  creation,  not  man's.  The  prophet  recog- 
nized it  as  such  when,  despairing  of  sinful  Israel, 
he  promised  that  in  the  future,  in  the  new  cove- 
nant, God  would  remember  the  sin  no  more,  and 
would  write  his  law  upon  the  tablets  of  the  heart. 
Our  Lord  here  simply  declares  that  what  proph- 
ets and  psalmists  saw  from  afar  is  on  the  point 
of  becoming  real.  The  acceptable  year  of 
Jehovah  is  about  to  begin.  His  beatitudes  are 
the  evangel,  giving  answer  across  the  ages  to  the 
prophesies  of  old.  It  means  that  with  comfort 
and  riches  and  mercy  and  sonship  and  the  vision 
of  God,  righteousness  will  be  given  in  abundance 
to  a  destitute  people.  True,  Jesus  does  not  enter 
here  upon  any  description  of  the  method  by 
which  this  is  to  be  accomplished.  As  little  as 
He  specifies  what  will  bring  comfort  in  the  place 
of  mourning,  does  He  tell  how  righteousness  will 
banish  sin.  But  does  not  the  very  fact  of  his 
foregoing  to  tell  this  afford  a  presumption  that 
He  is  conscious  of  carrying  the  source  and  sub- 
stance of  all  these  things  in  his  own  Person?  The 


56  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

same  Jesus  who  immediately  afterwards  in  in- 
terpreting the  law  puts  side  by  side  with  the 
commandment  of  God  his  sovereign,  "I  say  unto 
you,"  the  same  Jesus  here  takes  into  his  hands 
all  the  riches  of  prophecy,  as  only  the  God  of 
prophecy  can  take  them,  and  disposes  of  them  as 
his  own  sovereign  gift:  "Theirs  is  the  king- 
dom," and  "They  shall  be  filled."  What  gives 
Him  the  right  to  speak  thus,  not  merely  in  the 
sphere  of  power,  but  also  in  the  sphere  of 
righteousness?  As  God  He  could  change  sick- 
ness into  health,  and  mourning  into  joy,  but  even 
as  God  He  cannot  change  sin  and  guilt  into 
righteousness  by  a  mere  fiat  of  his  will.  When, 
nevertheless,  He  here  declares  that  this  will  be 
done,  the  reason  is  that  in  his  own  life,  his  life  of 
a  servant,  this  greatest  of  all  tasks  is  being  ac- 
complished. In  one  sense  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  was  a  sermon  preached  out  of  his  own 
personal  experience.  The  righteousness  He  de- 
scribed was  not  a  distant  ideal,  it  was  an  in- 
carnate reality- in  Himself.  He  alone  of  all  man- 
kind fulfilled  the  law  in  its  deepest  purport  and 
widest  extent.  His  keeping  of  it  proceeded  from 
that  sanctuary  of  his  inner  life  where  He  and 
the  Father  always  beheld  each  other*s  face.  He 
made  it  his  meat  and  drink  to  do  the  will  of  God. 
His  human  nature  was  an  altar  from  which  the 
incense  of  perfect  consecration  rose  ceaselessly 
day  and  night.  He  submitted  to  the  cross  and 
endured  the  shame,  not  merely  on  our  behalf,  but 
first  of  all  in  order  that  not  one  jot  or  one  tittle 
of  the  divine  justice  should  fall  to  the  ground. 
He  not  only  hungered  and  thirsted  but  was  sat- 


HUNGERING      AND      THIRSTING  57 

isfied  with  the  travail  of  his  soul.  And  now  you 
and  I  can  come  and  take  of  the  bread  and  water 
of  life  freely.  Through  justification  we  are 
even  in  this  life  filled  with  the  fulness  of  his 
merit,  and  appear  to  God  as  spotless  and  blame- 
less as  though  sin  had  never  touched  us.  Through 
sanctification  his  holy  character  is  impressed 
upon  our  souls,  so  that,  notwithstanding  our  im- 
perfections, God  takes  a  true  delight  in  us,  see- 
ing that  the  inner  man  is  changed  from 
day  to  day  after  the  likeness  of  Christ. 
And  the  full  meaning  of  our  Lord's  promise 
we  shall  know  in  the  last  day,  when  He 
shall  satisfy  Himself  in  us  by  presenting  us 
to  God  perfect  in  body,  soul  and  Spirit. 
Then  shall  come  to  pass  the  word  that  is  written : 
"They  shall  hunger  no  more,  neither  thirst  any 
more."  For  we  shall  behold  God's  face  in 
righteousness  and  be  satisfied,  when  we  awake, 
with  his  image. 


III.     Seeking  and  Saving  the  Lost 


The  Gospel  according  to  Luke, 
XIX,  10:  "For  the  Son  of  Man 
came  to  seek  and  to  save  that 
which  was  lost." 


SEEKING     AND     SAVING     THE     LOST  61 


HTHE  words  of  our  text  are  Jesus'  own  com- 
mentary  on  the  event  described  in  the  preced- 
ing verses.  His  meeting  with  Zacchaeus  and,  as 
a  result  of  this,  the  publican's  salvation,  were  in 
the  last  analysis  due  to  the  fact,  that  the  Son  of 
Man  came  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was 
lost.  And  in  the  light  of  this  interpretation  the 
event  itself  in  turn  becomes  a  commentary  upon 
the  Savior's  ministry  in  the  largest  sense,  both 
upon  that  which  He  served  while  on  earth  and 
upon  that  which  He  now  fulfills,  walking 
through  the  lands  and  the  ages,  as  He  once 
walked  through  the  fields  and  cities  of  Palestine. 
Neither  this  nor  any  other  occurrence  in  the 
Gospel-history  was  a  casual  thing.  It  is  true, 
these  days  of  our  Lord's  flesh  which  He  lived 
among  his  countrymen,  acting  and  acted  upon, 
were  a  real  concrete  piece  of  life  interwoven  with 
the  life  of  Israel.  They  belong  to  that  age  and 
generation  as  truly  as  any  section  of  human  his- 
tory can  be  said  to  belong  to  the  times  in  which 
it  happened.  But  it  is  also  true  that  this  is  not 
common  history,  but  sacred,  redemptive  history, 
which  means  that  there  runs  through  it,  from 
beginning  to  end,  a  special  design,  ordering  its 
course,  shaping  its  frame,  and  fixing  its  issues, 
so  as  to  make  of  it  a  proper  stage  for  the  enact- 
ment of  the  great  mystery  of  redemption,  whose 
spectators  and  participants  were  not  merely  the 
Jews  of  that  age  but  the  inhabitants  of  all  sub- 
sequent ages.     Nothing  is  casual  here;  every 


$2  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

moment,  every  circumstance,  every  person  that 
our  Lord  touched  became  fraught  by  that  touch 
with  a  profound  actuality  and  an  eternal  signifi- 
cance. How  marvelously  adapted  was  the  setting 
of  these  scenes  to  serve  their  unique  purpose! 
What  sharp  contrasts  of  human  state  and  con- 
dition were  here  brought  together !  What  pro- 
nounced types  of  sin,  exhibiting  in  their  develop- 
ment the  root-principles  of  all  evil,  appear  side 
by  side!  The  Pharisee  and  the  Publican  come 
together  to  the  temple  of  God!  Truly,  in  this 
world  of  the  Jewish  land  a  microcosmic  picture 
was  presented  of  the  realms  of  sin  and  suffering 
and  sorrow  and  death.  And  because  this  is  so, 
you  and  I  can  come  to  the  story  of  two  thousand 
years  ago  and  find  a  present  salvation  there,  an 
ever  open  door  to  the  house  of  peace  and  hope. 
These  are  not  strange,  outlandish  scenes  and 
surroundings  we  are  invited  to ;  it  is  the  familiar 
ground  of  sin  and  salvation ;  those  who  people  it 
are  flesh  of  our  flesh  and  bone  of  our  bone,  and 
the  Savior,  who  comes  to  meet  them,  in  their 
persons  meets  us  and  transacts  his  business  with 
us  individually  about  matters  of  eternal  im- 
portance. 

For  a  few  moments  with  the  statement  of  our 
text  in  mind  let  us  look  at  what  passed  between 
Zacchaeus  and  the  Savior.  The  time  is  that 
of  Jesus'  last  journey  to  Jerusalem  shortly  be- 
fore the  great  Passover  in  which  all  things  were 
to  be  fulfilled.  These  were  the  last  hours  of  the 
day  during  which  it  is  possible  to  work;  closer 
and  closer  drew  near  for  Him  that  night  of  suf- 
fering and  death  in  which  it  is  not  given  to  any 


SEEKING     AND     SAVING     THE     LOST  53 

man  to  work.  Could  one  have  wondered,  if  in 
this  critical  hour  our  Lord's  thoughts  had  been 
wholly  turned  forward  and  inward,  if,  oblivious 
to  his  surroundings,  He  had  been  intent  upon  the 
tremendous  experience  of  his  passion  with 
Avhich  He  was  now  almost  face  to  face?  We  do 
find  Him  faithful  and  busy  in  the  outward  duty 
until  the  last  moment.  As  He  loved  his  own  until 
the  end,  so  it  may  be  said  that  He  sought  his  own 
until  the  darkness  of  death  closed  in  upon  Him. 
But  a  moment  ago  He  had  helped  the  blind  beg- 
gar at  the  entrance  to  Jericho,  and,  scarcely 
within  the  city,  a  publican  becomes  the  object  of 
his  quest.  Notice  how  vividly  the  sense  of  a  spe- 
cific duty,  here  and  now  to  be  performed,  is  pres- 
ent to  the  Savior's  mind,  for  He  announces  to 
Zacchaeus :  "Today  I  must  abide  at  thine  house." 
His  times  and  ways  and  works  were  not  his  own  - 
but  the  Father's  who  had  sent  Him.  But  let  us 
further  notice  the  precise  expression  that  prin- 
ciple receives  in  the  statement:  "The  Son  of 
Man  came  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was 
lost."  There  is  no  need  of  asking  for  the  mo- 
ment, whence  He  came;  the  fact  of  his  coming 
in  itself  sufficiently  claims  our  attention.  For 
this  "coming"  means  his  coming  into  the  world ; 
it  covers  his  entire  earthly  life ;  He  was  born  for 
this  purpose,  and  this  purpose  only,  to  seek  and 
save  the  lost.  Never  in  all  human  history  was 
there  such  an  absolute  concentration  of  life  upon 
a  single  specific  task  as  that  which  our  Lord  here 
affirms  of  Himself.  Every  man  comes  into  the 
world  to  work  out  a  design  of  God  in  his  exist- 
ence. But  in  the  case  of  each  one  of  us  this  design 


64  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

embraces  a  number  of  various  ends,  all  of  which 
we  legitimately  pursue,  and  in  all  of  which  we 
serve  the  will  of  God.  Our  Lord's  life  was  a 
human  life  which  derived  its  meaning  from  be- 
ginning to  end  from  his  vocation  as  a  Savior; 
in  seeking  and  saving  its  significance  exhausted 
itself.  To  that  even  the  most  sacred  and  private 
concerns  of  his  soul  with  God,  his  prayer,  his 
trust,  all  his  intercourse  with  the  Father,  were 
wholly  subservient.  The  personal  was  swallowed 
up  in  the  one  great  devotion  to  the  work  of  God. 
Into  this  the  full  stream  of  his  strength  flowed, 
from  this  its  hidden  sources  were  nourished :  He 
made  it  his  meat  and  his  drink  to  do  the  will  of 
his  Father  in  heaven.  He  lived  for  this  will  and 
He  lived  on  it.  Thus  only  can  we  explain  to  our- 
selves the  sensitiveness  of  our  Lord,  where  his 
right  to  prosecute  this  task  was  called  into  ques- 
tion, for  then  He  felt  Himself  assailed  in  the 
center  and  sanctuary  of  his  being.  Hence  on  this 
very  occasion,  when  after  his  entrance  of  the 
house  of  Zacchaeus  the  people  murmured,  say- 
ing, "He  is  gone  in  to  lodge  with  a  man  that  is  a 
sinner,"  our  Lord  did  not  content  Himself  with 
pointing  out  the  propriety  and  beneficence  of  the 
act,  but  vindicated  his  conduct  by  an  appeal  to 
the  supreme  law  of  life  under  which  He  stood 
and  from  which  He  could  not  free  Himself  with- 
out ceasing  to  be  what  He  was.  With  what  sub- 
lime simplicity  He  takes  for  granted,  that  his  en- 
tering into  a  house  could  be  for  no  other  purpose 
than  to  introduce  salvation  there!  Of  course, 
there  is  in  this  something  unique,  incapable  of 
reproduction  in  precisely  that  sense  by  even  the 


SEEKING     AND     SAVING     THE     LOST  65 

most  consecrated  servant  of  God.  He  was  made 
incarnate  for  the  work  of  salvation,  and  we  are 
dedicated  to  our  ministry  on  the  basis  of  a 
natural  life  we  already  possess.  Paul  perhaps  in 
this  respect  approached  nearest  to  the  example 
of  the  Lord,  having  been  separated  from  his 
mother's  womb  for  the  Apostleship.  In  his 
words,  "Woe  is  me,  if  I  preach  not  the  Gospel" 
we  imagine  to  hear  an  echo  of  our  text  and  other 
similar  declarations  of  our  Lord.  But  surely, 
though  with  an  almost  equal  distance  between, 
we  likewise  ought  to  possess  some  reproduction 
of  this  mind  of  Christ  within  us.  Pitiable  indeed 
is  the  plight  of  the  steward  of  Christ,  who  can- 
not say  from  a  conviction  as  profound  as  the 
roots  of  his  spiritual  life  itself,  that  he  came  into 
the  kingdom  for  the  very  purpose  of  seeking 
and  of  saving  that  which  was  lost. 

The  Lord's  statement,  however,  obtains  a 
still  richer  and  more  forceful  meaning  by  our  en- 
quiring whence  and  out  of  what  state  He  came  to 
enter  upon  this  life-task.  It  may  be  in  a  certain 
sense  true  that  in  the  Synoptical  Gospels  there 
is  not  that  emphatic  expression  of  his  eternal 
pre-existence  in  the  world  of  heaven,  not  that 
sublime  consciousness  of  transcending  the 
sphere  of  time,  as  are  met  with  in  the  discourses 
recorded  by  John.  But,  surely,  if  we  will  only 
come  to  them  with  believing  minds,  we  shall  not 
fail  to  find  even  in  these  simpler  narratives  indi- 
cations of  the  great  mystery  of  godliness  suffi- 
ciently clear  to  satisfy  us,  when  in  the  helpless- 
ness of  our  sins  we  cry  out  for  a  divine,  an 
eternal    Savior.      Such    a    message    our    text 


66  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

brings  us,  when  it  declares  that  "the  Son  of 
Man  came  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was 
lost."  The  word  "came"  is  in  itself  suggestive  of 
a  previous  sphere  and  state  which  He  exchanged 
for  our  world,  a  sphere  and  state  wherein  no 
seeking  nor  saving  was  required,  because  there 
all  live  secure  and  blessed  in  God.  But  much 
more  suggestive  is  this  word  when  coupled  with 
the  name  "Son  of  Man."  It  is  not  accidental  that 
our  Lord  makes  use  of  this  self-designation  in 
a  connection  like  this.  Elsewhere. also  we  read 
that  "The  Son  of  Man  came  not  to  be  ministered 
unto  but  to  minister  and  to  give  his  life  a 
ransom."  And  in  a  number  of  other  passages 
the  title  is  associated  with  his  abode  in  the  world 
of  heaven,  whence  He  descended  to  these  lower 
regions  of  ours.  In  the  prophecy  of  Daniel,  where 
first  the  phrase  "Son  of  Man"  is  used  to  describe 
the  Messiah,  twice  a  "coming"  is  affirmed  of  the 
Person  so  designated:  "There  came  with  the 
clouds  of  heaven  One  like  unto  a  son  of  man,  and 
He  came  even  to  the  Ancient  of  Days."  Now, 
while  our  Lord  often  identifies  the  "coming" 
thus  described  with  his  return  to  judgment,  yet 
He  likewise  once  and  again  retrospectively  asso- 
ciates it  with  his  first  advent,  when  He  came  out 
of  the  glory  He  had  with  the  Father  before  the 
world  was.  Being  told,  therefore,  that  it  was 
the  "Son  of  Man,"  who  came  to  seek  and  to  save, 
our  first  thought  surely  should  be  of  that  un- 
speakable grace  of  our  Lord,  who,  being  rich  as 
God  alone  can  be  rich,  yet  for  our  sake  became 
poor  as  sinful  man  only  can  be  poor,  that  by  his 
poverty  we  might  be  made  rich.    The  depth  to 


SEEKING     AND     SAVING     THE     LOST  67 

which  this  seeking  and  saving  brings  Him  down 
should  be  measured  by  the  distance  there  is  be- 
tween the  highest  in  God  and  the  lowest  in  man. 
To  lodge  with  publicans  and  sinners  might  be 
condescension  for  a  high-placed  personage — 
what  language  will  express  its  meaning  in  the 
case  of  the  infinite  God?  The  "Son  of  Man," 
who  unites  in  Himself  all  that  Deity  and  human- 
ity together  can  lend  of  glory  to  the  Messianic 
state,  He  it  is  who  came  to  seek  and  to  save  the 
lost.  It  was  such  a  glorious  life  that  was  wholly 
given  up  to  its  very  last  thought,  poured  out  to 
the  very  last  residue  of  its  strength,  and  that 
for  the  task  of  helping  us,  the  lowest  of  us,  who 
would  have  turned  away  from  one  another,  be- 
cause the  sinful  felt  it  a  degradation  to  stoop  to 
such  as  were  a  degree  more  sinful  than  they  ac- 
knowledged themselves  to  be.  When  we  combine 
this  consciousness  of  ineffable  glory  sacrificed 
with  the  consciousness  of  absolute  surrender  to 
the  service  of  the  most  despised,  then,  and  only 
then,  do  we  begin  to  understand  somewhat  of  the 
indignation  with  which  Jesus  repudiated  the 
charge,  brought  by  sinful  men,  that  it  was  un- 
w^orthy  of  Him  to  associate  with  publicans  and 
sinners.  With  superhuman  dignity  the  one  word 
"Son  of  Man"  silences  that  voice  of  murmuring 
in  the  streets  of  Jericho,  and  every  echo,  we  may 
add,  of  that  same  voice  from  any  quarter,  or  any 
age,  when  it  presumes  to  criticize  the  Gospel  of 
Christ  on  the  ground  that  it  speaks  in  accents  of 
the  sovereign  grace  of  God. 

But  the  fact  that  He  came  as  the  "Son  of 
Man"  is  important  for  our  Lord's  seeking  and 


68  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

saving  of  the  lost  in  still  another  respect.  By 
reason  of  it  He  retains  even  on  earth  the  exer- 
cise of  that  divine  knowledge  and  power  which 
such  a  task  calls  into  requisition.  Love  is  far- 
sighted  and  wields  great  influence,  but  love 
alone,  even  divine  love  alone,  would  not  be  suffi- 
cient to  find  and  save  the  sinner.  Seeking  and 
saving  are  acts  in  which  God  puts  forth  his 
omniscience  and  omnipotence,  as  the  searcher  of 
hearts  and  the  Lord  of  spirits.  To  these  divine 
prerogatives  the  "Son  of  Man"  lays  claim  in  the 
pursuit  of  his  task.  He  brings  to  it  all  the  quali- 
fications which  its  character  as  a  strictly  divine 
work  requires.  When  making  to  Nathanael  the 
marvelous  disclosure  of  his  supernatural  knowl- 
edge, He  declares,  "Ye  shall  see  thie  heaven 
opened  and  the  Angels  of  God  ascending  and 
descending  upon  the  Son  of  Man."  It  is  in  the 
"Son  of  Man"  that  the  mystic  ladder,  which 
Jacob  saw  at  Bethel,  has  been  truly  set  up,  so 
that  God  visits  man,  and  man  is  made  aware  of 
the  saving  presence  of  God.  In  healing  the  sick 
of  the  palsy  He  demonstrated  the  authority  of 
the  "Son  of  Man"  to  forgive  sins  on  earth  by 
bidding  him  arise,  take  up  his  bed  and  go  to  his 
house.  Here  the  very  point  in  question  was, 
whether  during  his  sojourn  on  earth  such  power 
belonged  to  the  "Son  of  Man."  That  He  pos- 
sessed it  in  his  heavenly  state  even  the  Scribes 
would  scarcely  have  doubted;  what  they  dis- 
puted was  that  any  person  on  earth  should  pre- 
tend to  share  this  right  with  God.  But  Jesus 
claims,  and  by  the  miracle  proves  his  claim,  that 
He  is  on  earth  invested  with  the  power  of  saying 


SEEKING     AND     SAVING     THE     LOST  69 

to  a  guilty  soul,  "Thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee," 
and  to  say  it  so  that  the  conscience,  which  obeys  - 
no  other  voice  than  the  voice  of  God  Himself, 
will  acknowledge  Him  as  its  Sovereign  and  be 
silent  at  his  behest.  But  what  need  to  look  for 
illustrations  elsewhere,  when  the  connection  of 
our  text  itself  gives  the  most  striking  example 
of  how  our  Lord  places  these  divine  attributes 
in  the  service  of  his  seeking  and  saving  love? 
When  Jesus  came  to  the  spot  where  Zacchaeus 
had  stationed  himself  for  observation,  it  was 
surely  not  by  accident  that  his  eye  discovered 
the  publican  amidst  the  branches  of  the  tree. 
His  looking  up  precisely  at  that  point  may  con- 
vince us  that  He  acted  deliberately ;  it  was  a  step 
in  that  process  of  seeking  for  which  He  had 
come.  He  calls  the  publican  by  name,  though  to . 
all  appearance  the  two  had  never  met  before. 
Yea  before  that  spot  on  the  roadside  was 
reached.  He  had  not  only  discovered  his  per- 
son, but  had  read  with  omniscience  the  inner- 
most thoughts  of  his  heart.  He  who  could  say, 
"Before  Philip  called  thee,  when  thou  wast  un- 
der the  fig-tree,  I  saw  thee,"  He  had  likewise  seen 
Zacchaeus  in  advance  of  the  latter's  seeing  Him. 
Here  is  a  look  from  which  no  man  can  hide  him- 
self, the  same  that  saw  our  first  parents  behind 
the  branches  of  the  fateful  trees,  and  has  since 
that  hour,  wherever  sinners  seek  to  conceal 
themselves,  penetrated  into  the  recesses  of  their 
guilt  and  shame,  called  them  up  from  their 
depths  of  despair  and  brought  them  down  from 
their  heights  of  pride,  a  look  from  the  eyes  of 
the  Lord  which  are  in  all  places  and  see  the  small 


70  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

no  less  than  the  great.  More  than  this,  we  need 
not  hesitate  to  affirm  that  the  publican,  though 
unaware  of  the  fact,  was  there  at  his  station  by 
the  appointment  of  Jesus.  In  all  probability 
Zacchaeus  in  his  desire  to  see  Jesus,  who  He  was, 
was  not  so  exclusively  actuated  by  curiosity  as 
is  usually  assumed.  But  suppose  it  to  have  been 
curiosity  and  nothing  more,  even  that  was  in  no 
wise  exempt  from  the  Lord's  control.  Open  to 
Him  are  a  thousand  ways  to  bring  you  and  me  to 
the  very  place  and  point  where  He  desires  to 
meet  us.  How  many  of  us  would  have  been 
saved,  if  the  Lord  had  waited  till  we  sought  Him 
out?  Thanks  be  to  God,  He  is  a  Savior  who 
seeks  the  lost,  who  with  eyes  supernaturally  far- 
sighted  discerns  us  a  long  way  off,  and  draws  our 
interest  to  Himself  by  the  sweet  constraint  of  his 
grace,  till  we  are  face  to  face  with  Him  and  our 
soul  is  saved.  As  once,  in  the  incarnation,  He 
came  down  from  heaven  to  seek  mankind,  so 
He  still  comes  down  silently  from  heaven  in  the 
case  of  each  sinner,  and  pursues  his  search  for 
that  individual  soul  following  it  through  all  the 
mazes  of  its  waywardness  and  the  devious  paths 
of  its  folly,  sometimes  unto  the  very  brink  of  de- 
struction, till  at  last  his  grace  overtakes  it  and 
says,  "I  must  lodge  at  thy  house."  For,  besides 
the  divine  omniscience  here  manifested,  we  are 
made  witnesses  of  the  Lord's  sovereign  and  al- 
mighty power.  Having  found  Zacchaeus  He  ad- 
dresses to  him  that  call,  which  makes  the  lame  to 
leap,  the  blind  to  see,  the  deaf  to  hear,  nay  the 
dead  to  arise,  a  call  like  the  voice  of  God  at  the 
first  creation,  "Let  there  be  light,  and  there  was 


SEEKING     AND     SAVING     THE     LOST  71 

light" :  "Zacchaeus,  make  haste  and  come  down, 
for  today  I  must  abide  at  thine  house."  Note 
the  instantaneous  effect.  Behold  here  Zacchaeus, 
who  perhaps  never  before  had  encountered  the 
Savior,  who  would  have  hardly  ventured  to  ap- 
proach Jesus,  behold  him  at  a  single  word  trans- 
formed into  a  disciple  of  the  Lord.  He  knows 
the  voice  of  the  Shepherd  immediately,  makes 
haste  to  come  down  and  receives  him  with  joy. 
This  is  that  wonderful  effectual  calling  by  name, 
which  takes  place  wherever  a  sinner  is  saved, 
and  which,  while  it  may  not  always  take  place 
with  such  suddenness  and  under  such  striking 
circumstances  as  happened  here,  yet  is  in  sub- 
stance everywhere  equally  supernatural  and 
immediate.  The  use  of  the  divine  word,  not  only 
does  not  detract  from  its  immediacy,  but  serves 
the  very  purpose  of  expressing  the  fact  that 
nothing  but  the  omnipotent  volition  of  God 
is  at  work  in  it.  For  it  is  characteristic 
of  God,  and  of  God  alone,  thus  to  produce 
effects  by  a  mere  word.  He  gives  life  to 
the  dead  and  calls  the  things  that  are  not,  as 
though  they  were.  Thus  Lazarus  was  summoned 
from  the  grave,  and  thus  Zacchaeus  was  brought 
into  the  Shepherd's  fold.  Of  course,  there  is  no 
cause  for  denying  that  as  the  result  of,  and  sim- 
ultaneously with,  this  call,  many  thoughts  and 
convictions  may  be  released  and  spring  into 
action  that  were  previously  latent.  Images  may 
have  floated  before  Zacchaeus'  mind  picturing 
Jesus  in  his  ways  and  works.  The  Gospel  sum- 
mons may  have  come  to  him  through  rumor  or 
report  of  the  Savior's  life,  for  even  in  regard  to 


72  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

these  outward  instrumentalities  for  conveying 
the  knowledge  of  Christ  it  is  sometimes  true 
which  is  written  elsewhere  concerning  the  in- 
ward birth  itself,  "The  wind  bloweth  where  it 
listeth,  and  thou  hearest  the  voice  thereof,  but 
knowest  not  whence  it  cometh,  and  whither  it  go- 
eth."  The  Spirit  of  God  which  makes  all  things 
new,  can  so  baptize  an  ancient  fragment  of  truth, 
a  dimly  remembered  shadow  of  knowledge,  as  to 
give  it  in  our  apperception  all  the  radiant  new- 
ness of  a  flash  of  light  fresh  from  the  womb  of 
revelation.  But,  while  all  these  old  elements 
of  consciousness  may  work,  as  out  of  the  past, 
they  are  in  no  case  the  actual  producers  of  the 
new  creature.  On  the  contrary  it  is  only  through 
the  immediate  impartation  of  the  higher  life 
that  they  can^  be  roused  from  their  dormant 
state  to  the  active  vitality  of  a  heartfelt  experi- 
ence. Whatever  antecedently  dwells  in  our 
souls  of  religious  knowledge,  of  reasonable 
persuasion  of  the  truth,  of  recognition  of  God's 
claim  upon  us,  of  stirrings  of  conscience — it  all 
needs  to  be  regenerated  and  quickened  by  the 
touch  of  Christ,  before  it  can  blossom  into  sav- 
ing faith.  We  speak  of  our  saving  men,  but  this, 
while  conveying  a  legitimate  idea,  is  a  metaphor. 
At  bottom  it  signifies  no  more  than  that  through 
the  means  of  grace  we  arrange  and  prepare  the 
situation  in  which  it  pleases  God  to  perform  the 
unique  saving  act.  It  is  ours  to  let  in  the  light 
and  lay  ready  the  garments  which  afterwards 
Lazarus  will  need,  but  we  cannot  wake  the 
sleeper  under  the  stone.  Let  us  rejoice  that  this 
is  so.     Precisely  that  at  the  center  there  lies 


SEEKING     AND     SAVING     THE     LOST  73 

something  that  we  cannot  do  constitutes  the 
glory  of  our  message.  If  the  gospel-dispensa- 
tion were  a  matter  of  mere  intellectual  enlight- 
enment and  moral  suasion,  such  as  fall  within  the 
limits  of  human  power  to  produce,  then  indeed 
it  might  be  urged,  that  what  is  reserved  for  the 
divine  action  is  subtracted  from  the  scope  of 
human  opportunity,  the  intrusion  of  God,  as  it 
were,  diminishing  our  glory.  But  on  such  a  view 
of  the  gospel  ministry  its  distinction  is  reduced 
to  a  level,  where  it  matters  little,  whether  the 
minister  accomplishes  more  or  less  of  it.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  gospel  service  is  incorpor- 
ated in  a  creative  movement  of  supernatural 
character,  involving  at  its  core  what  lies  abso- 
lutely beyond  human  power,  then  to  feel  this 
inevitable  limitation  as  a  drawback  would 
evince  a  strange  blindness  to  the  most  glorious 
aspect  of  the  preacher's  office.  To  move  on  the 
outermost  fringe  of  a  process  of  that  kind,  to 
have  even  the  slightest  connection  with  it,  con- 
fers an  unspeakable  distinction,  because  it  asso- 
ciates one  with  what  is  specifically  divine.  How 
much  greater  still  is  the  grace,  if  we  are  per- 
mitted not  a  minimum  but  the  highest  conceiv- 
able degree  of  proximity  to  the  wonder-world 
of  God !  Is  not  the  underlying  cause  of  the  fail- 
ure to  perceive  this,  that  we  too  much  individ- 
ualize and  isolate  ourselves,  instead  of  feeling 
strongly  our  organic  appurtenance  to  the 
mighty,  supernaturalizing  movement  introduced 
by  God  into  this  world?  If  we  could  only  more 
adequately  realize  the  irresistible  omnipotence 
of  its  momentum  and  the  robe  of  splendor  it 


74  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

casts  around  the  smallest  of  its  servants,  we 
would  exult  with  Paul  and  give  thanks  to  God 
"who  always  leadeth  us  in  triumph  in  Christ." 
But  let  us  return  to  Zacchaeus  and  note  how 
our  Lord  further  illustrates  the  nature  of  the 
saving  act  for  which  as  "Son  of  Man"  he  claims 
to  possess  the  full  qualifications.  It  is  an  act  of 
seeking  and  saving  the  "lost."  What  it  implies 
can  be  ascertained  from  the  state  aflfirmed  of  its 
objects.  There  is  a  sure  correlation  between 
these  two,  and,  if  at  any  time  we  are  apt  to  lose 
the  proper  perspective  in  regard  to  either  of 
them,  we  should  immediately  rectify  our  view  by 
reflecting  upon  the  inherent  significance  of  the 
other  term.  The  "lost"  are  such  as  require  a 
"Seeker"  and  "Savior" ;  when  tempted  to  dilute 
or  tone  down  the  meaning  of  this  word,  it  should 
suffice  to  remember,  that  in  the  same  proportion 
as  this  is  done  we  also  detract  from  the  Savior- 
title  of  our  Lord  a  substantial  part  of  its  signifi- 
cance. And  conversely,  if  we  allow  ourselves  to 
lose  sight  of  even  the  smallest  part  of  what  the 
words  "to  save"  and  "Savior"  connote,  it  neces- 
sarily modifies  the  sound  which  the  word  "lost" 
carries  to  our  ear.  There  is  no  escape  from 
this ;  it  is  the  inherent  logic  of  the  structure  of 
the  Gospel.  To  refuse  to  be  bound  by  it  puts 
one  beyond  the  pale  of  consistent  Christianity.  It 
will  therefore  well  repay  us  to  scan  most  closely 
the  exact  correspondence  of  these  two  ideas  in 
our  text.  There  is  perhaps  no  passage  that  en- 
ables us  to  do  so  to  the  same  degree  of  definite- 
ness  and  clearness  as  this  saying  of  our  Lord's. 
The  reason  is  that  here  He  has,  in  response  to 


SEEKING     AND     SAVING     THE     LOST  75 

the  peculiar  situation  of  Zacchaeus,  taken  pains 
to  resolve  the  Savior-function  in  its  two  compo- 
nent parts,  so  as  to  give  us  a  double  light  for  the 
purpose.  The  "Son  of  Man"  came  not  merely  to 
seek,  but  "to  seek  and  to  save."  Nor  is  this  in 
the  nature  of  a  mere  addition  of  a  second  thing 
to  a  first:  these  two  likewise  mutually  illumine 
each  other;  the  seeking  determines  the  saving, 
and  the  saving  in  turn  the  seeking,  and  both  as 
thus  joined  together  receive  their  interwoven 
significance  from  the  "being  lost."  Now  it  is 
not  difficult  to  ascertain  what  the  word  "lost" 
expresses  in  the  vocabulary  of  Jesus.  "To  be 
lost"  in  its  simple,  primary  sense,  which  it 
scarcely  needs  knowledge  of  the  original  to  un- 
derstand, is  "to  be  missing,"  to  have  passed  out 
of  the  active  possession  and  use  of  one's  owner. 
The  word,  of  course,  in  order  to  be  intelligible, 
requires  the  supplementary  thought  of  a  defi- 
nite possessor.  It  is  not  the  vague  general  no- 
tion of  forsakenness  and  misery  Jesus  has  in 
mind  when  using  it,  but  very  particularly  the 
fact  of  the  sinner's  being  missing  to  God,  that 
is  missing  to  the  normal  relations  man  sustains 
to  God.  Because  these  relations  to  God  consti- 
tute in  our  Lord's  opinion  the  fundamental  thing 
in  human  life,  the  state  of  "being  lost"  acquires 
that  sad  connotation  of  total  derangement  and 
dissolution  of  all  the  factors  and  forces  of  spir- 
itual existence;  the  word  has  about  it  the  sol- 
emn, ominous  sound  of  darkness  and  chaos.  The 
light  and  health  of  life,  which  are  religion,  have 
departed  with  the  departure  from  Him  who  is 
the  one  source  of  both.   The  lost  sinner  is  swung 


76  GKACE      AND      GLORY 

out  of  the  orbit  appointed  for  him  by  the  central 
position  of  God,  deprived  of  all  the  attractions 
of  fellowship  and  trust  and  obedience  and  bless- 
edness that  were  his  birthright  ever  since  God 
in  infinite  grace  constructed  the  circle  of  religion 
around  Himself.  Furthermore,  being  out  of 
harmony  with  God,  man,  as  a  sinner,  has  lost 
the  rhythm  of  his  own  spiritual  life;  he  is  full 
of  discords  and  inner  conflicts,  law  clashing 
with  law  and  in  consequence  the  deepest  self 
falling  a  prey  to  these  disruptive  forces  which 
attack  it  at  its  core.  The  very  moment  the  prodi- 
gal leaves  the  Father's  house  he  carries  this  fatal 
disorder  within  him,  he  is  beside  himself  in  prin- 
ciple, so  that,  when  in  bitter  repentance  he  be- 
gins to  realize  his  desperate  condition,  this  is 
described  as  a  "coming  to  himself."  This,  then, 
in  the  first  place  is  "being  lost,"  and  to  this  in 
the  first  place  addresses  itself  the  task  of  the 
Son  of  Man.  Hence  its  first  part  must  of  neces- 
sity be  a  "seeking"  of  the  sinner.  And  the 
"seeking"  must  be  such  an  act  as  will  be  able  to 
undo  the  "being  lost."  We  should,  therefore, 
take  a  far  too  superficial  view  of  it,  were  we  to 
confine  it  to  the  bare  effort  at  approach,  or  per- 
haps even  to  the  search  for  locating  the  sinner, 
as  the  figure,  taken  by  itself,  might  tempt  us  to 
do.  No,  the  finding  is  not  the  mere  discovery, 
it  is  the  actual  bringing  back  to  God,  something 
by  which  the  sinner  is  restored  to  the  blessed 
reality  of  what  God  is  to  him  and  he  is  to  God: 
"And  when  he  came  to  himself  he  said,  I  will 
arise  and  go  to  my  Father."  Are  we  not  made 
to  feel  by  this,  that  not  first  in  the  saving  but  al- 


SEEKING     AND     SAVING     THE     LOST  77 

ready  in  the  finding  begins  the  uniqueness  of  the 
Savior's  work,  that  which  differentiates  it  from 
any  finding  that  we  can  do,  however  glorious 
the  latter  may  be  in  itself.  For,  after  all,  our 
finding  of  a  man  can  be  only  preparatory  to  his 
becoming  partaker  of  salvation.  In  the  case  of 
Christ  it  is  identical  with  the  saving  act  itself. 
Yea  already  the  seeking  is  a  part  of  the  finding, 
because  with  unfailing  certainty  and  directness 
the  feet  and  the  arms  of  the  Savior  move  to  the 
point  where  the  saving  embrace  is  accomplished. 
In  the  last  analysis  the  difference  between  this 
and  our  part  appears  due  to  the  difference  be- 
tween Christ  as  God  and  ourselves  as  mere 
human  instrumentalities.  To  be  found  by  Jesus 
is  to  be  saved  for  the  simple  reason  that  in  his 
Person  God  Himself  restores  the  lost  contact, 
gathers  up  the  cords  of  life  into  His  own  bosom, 
and  throws  about  us  the  circle  of  his  divine 
beatitude,  so  that  our  soul,  like  a  star  in  its 
native  course,  once  more  moves  around  Him,  and 
knows  no  other  law  or  center.  So  far  as  Christ 
was  a  preacher  He  preached  with  the  voice  of 
God,  and  in  his  message  salvation  was  not 
merely  potential  but  incarnate.  He  silently 
takes  this  for  granted  in  his  whole  treatment  of 
sinners,  when  He  deals  with  them  sovereignly 
in  the  supreme  issues  of  life  and  death.  In  a 
word  He  saves  as  God  saves.  On  this  ground, 
and  on  this  ground  only,  can  we  understand  why 
so  seldom  in  the  matter  of  salvation  He  points 
beyond  Himself  to  God,  but  constantly  places  his 
own  Person  in  the  center  of  the  sinner's  field  of 
vision,  so  as  to  focus  belief  and  trust  and  hope 


78  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

and  surrender  and  attachment  in  Himself.  Con- 
sequently it  is  true  not  only  in  the  abstractly 
logical,  but  in  the  most  realistic,  one  might  al- 
most say  in  the  local  sense,  that  where  Jesus  is, 
there  is  salvation,  and  away  from  Him  there  is 
none.  As  He  rebuked  the  disciples  in  the  storm, 
because  they  forgot  this  fact,  and  feared  that 
with  Him  on  board  they  still  might  perish,  even 
so  He  requires  of  us  that  in  every  tempest  of 
life  we  shall  be  tranquil,  because  our  ship  car- 
ries Him.  Was  it  not  so  in  this  very  case  of 
Zacchaeus?  Because  He  had  entered,  salvation 
in  Him  and  through  Him  had  entered  into  the 
publican's  house. 

Salvation,  however,  according  to  our  Lord's 
teaching  is  not  exhausted  by  restoring  the  sin- 
ner to  a  sense  of  the  realities  of  his  appurte- 
nance to  God.  There  is  another  equally  indis- 
pensable side  to  it.  What  this  is  we  may  learn 
by  considering  the  second  element  that  enters 
into  the  state  of  "being  lost."  "To  be  lost"  is 
more  than  to  be  missing  to  God.  It  has  also  the 
passive,  even  more  terrible  sense  of  "being 
ruined,"  "given  up  to  destruction."  The  former 
sense  remains  within  the  sphere  of  the  negative ; 
it  describes  what  is  absent  from  the  sinner's 
state;  this  other  sense  is  positive,  denoting  the 
presence  of  something  dreadful  there.  If 
our  Lord's  discourse  dwells  chiefly,  and  with 
a  noticeable  predilection,  on  the  first  aspect  of 
the  matter,  this  is  perhaps  due  to  the  vividness 
with  which  by  very  reason  of  the  concrete,  de- 
tailed picture  of  what  is  wanting,  the  glorious 
realities  of  religion  are  brought  out.    The  rule 


SEEKING     AND     SAVING     THE     LOST  79 

that  we  do  not  clearly  visualize  a  thing  until 
through  its  departure  and  its  consequent  fail- 
ure to  function  it  recalls  its  image  to  our  mind, 
is  here  put  to  practical  use.  Strange  to  say,  the 
face  of  religion  appears  in  our  Lord's  teaching 
most  clearly  in  the  form  of  a  description  of  its 
opposite.  "In  my  father's  house  there  is  bread 
enough  and  to  spare,  while  I  perish  with  hun- 
ger"— what  glowing  words  could  have  more  pow- 
erfully expressed  the  blessedness  of  spiritual 
satisfaction  near  the  heart  of  God  than  this  piti- 
ful cry  of  want !  There  is  a  lesson  for  us  in  this. 
We  shall  never  succeed  in  impressing  men,  un- 
touched by  grace,  with  the  riches  and  glory  of 
religion,  until  we  learn  from  Jesus  to  hold 
up  to  them  the  mirror  of  their  sin  and 
destitution.  To  say  that  there  is  no  experience  of 
redemption  without  the  knowledge  of  sin  sounds 
like  a  truism ;  perhaps  it  will  appear  less  so,  if  we 
go  one  step  farther  and  add,  that  there  is,  as 
things  are,  no  proper,  no  deep  knowledge  either 
of  religion  or  of  redemption  than  through  the 
sorrowful  journey  into  the  far  country  of  famine 
and  husks.  But,  while  for  this  obvious  reason 
the  greater  part  of  Jesus'  teaching  on  the  lost  is 
concerned  with  the  first  aspect  of  their  state,  it 
would  be  wrong  to  infer  that  the  other  side  only 
slightly  or  perfunctorily  figured  in  his  mind. 
The  contrary  is  true.  The  subject  possessed  for 
Him  such  a  fearful  reality,  that,  except  on  the 
most  solemn  and  imperative  occasions.  He  hesi- 
tated to  contemplate  or  draw  it  into  the  glare  of 
open  speech.  It  is  none  the  less  there  with  the 
ominous  darkness  of  untold,  nay  unspeakable 


80  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

things  spread  over  it  like  a  semi-opaque 
curtain.  To  be  sure,  it  is  something  future,  but 
this  only  deepens  the  gloom  that  covers  it.  It  is 
born  of  the  womb  of  the  judgment.  "Broad  is 
the  way  that  leads  to  perdition"  and  the  lost  are 
those  walking  on  it.  Only  this  should  not  be 
taken  to  mean  that  the  loss  contemplated  is 
purely  future.  It  overhangs  and  envelops  the 
sinner  even  in  this  life.  As  the  narrow  path  to 
the  city  of  God,  notwithstanding  its  straight- 
ness,  is  already  bordered  with  some  of  the  flow- 
ers and  fruits  of  paradise,  so  the  highway  to  the 
land  of  destruction,  in  spite  of  its  seeming  de- 
lights, has  long  stretches  of  shadow  from  the 
storm-cloud  that  is  seen  to  thicken  at  the  end. 
Even  in  this  ultimate,  more  perilous,  sense  it  is 
not  sufficient  to  say  that  the  sinner  will  suffer 
loss  in  the  last  day ;  according  to  the  conception 
of  Jesus  he  in  principle  is  already  lost.  We  feel 
something  of  the  awful  import  conveyed,  when 
in  his  high-priestly  prayer  the  Savior  declares: 
"Holy  Father,  I  kept  them  in  thy  name  which 
Thou  hast  given  me;  and  I  guarded  them,  and 
none  of  them  was  lost  except  the  son  of  perdi- 
tion." For,  although  Judas'  sin  in  degree  was 
altogether  beyond  comparison,  it  was  not  in  sub- 
stance different  from  each  sin  of  every  one  of 
us.  Except  for  the  intervention  of  God  no  one 
has  ever  turned  back  on  the  broad  way  to  perdi- 
tion. Herein  verily  is  seen  the  uttermost  divine 
grace,  that  Christ  seeks  and  saves  from  the  plight 
of  that  despair.  If  our  eyes  delight  to  see  Him 
as  the  friendly  Shepherd  on  the  trail  of  the  lost 
sheep,  let  us  not  turn  our  looks  away  from  Him 


SEEKING     AND     SAVING     THE     LOST  81 

in  this  more  solemn  occupation  of  rescuing  the 
lost  from  the  judgment.  Yea  let  us  see  Him  in 
the  darkness  of  the  cross.  For  this  part  of  the 
saving  also  takes  place  in  no  other  way  than  the 
more  gentle  one  we  have  already  considered. 
Here  too  He  not  merely  announces  or  promises 
the  salvation,  but  carries  it  in  his  own  Person. 
He  is  the  impersonation  of  the  God  who  pro- 
nounces the  judgment  and  of  the  God  who  sov- 
ereignly takes  it  away,  the  one  who  bears  our 
curse,  and,  while  bearing  it,  speaks  peace  to  our 
souls.  For  this  cause  He  came  to  the  cross,  that 
He  might  be  able  to  act  for  God  in  this  solemn, 
anticipated  judgment  through  which  every  sin- 
ner passes.  When  He  speaks  of  sin  and  pardon 
and  escape,  the  voice  is  the  voice  of  God  and  the 
arms  stretched  underneath  us  are  the  everlast- 
ing arms  of  the  Almighty  Himself. 

There  is  one  other  point  on  which  we  must 
briefly  touch  before  closing.  The  text  represents 
the  object  of  the  saving  in  the  impersonal  form 
as  "that  which  was  lost."  The  impersonal  form 
of  expression  carries  with  it  a  generalizing  ef- 
fect. It  amounts  practically  to  "whatsoever  is 
lost."  The  motive  in  our  Lord's  mind  for  this 
is  not  difficult  to  discover.  A  murmuring  pop- 
ulace had  excluded  the  class  of  publicans  from 
the  sphere  that  was  worthy  of  his  attention.  To 
this  Jesus  replies  with  the  emphatic  declaration, 
that  all  that  is  lost  falls  under  the  legitimate 
scope  of  his  task,  that,  since  the  very  fact  of 
salvation  is  evoked  by  there  being  lost  ones,  no 
exception  can  be  allowed  from  its  grace  on  the 
mere  ground  that  the  object  appears  lost.   With- 


82  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

in  the  realm  of  sin  distinctions  between  class 
and  class  or  degree  and  degree  of  sinners  be- 
come obliterated.  In  comparison  with  the  one 
tremendous  fact  of  sin  as  such  they  dwindle  into 
insignificance,  or  if  there  is  any  differentiation 
observable  it  assumes  rather  the  opposite,  para- 
doxical form  of  those  taking  the  precedence,  in 
whom,  by  reason  of  excessive  sinfulness  and 
most  poignant  sense  of  guilt,  salvation's  oppor- 
tunity for  magnifying  itself  is  increased.  The 
harlots  and  publicans  enter  first  into  the  king- 
dom of  God.  But  we  should  surely  misinterpret 
this,  if  we  took  it  to  mean  that  Jesus, 
after  precisely  the  same  fashion  seeks  and 
saves  each  single  one  that  is  lost.  Grace 
knows  no  jealousy  except  for  the  honor 
of  God.  With  wide  generousness,  such  as 
only  a  renewal  of  heart  can  give,  it  yearns 
and  prays  for  the  ingathering  of  many. 
None  the  less,  when  as  saved  sinners  we  place 
ourselves  individually  before  God,  who  would 
not  feel  it  as  a  denial  of  salvation  itself  to  for- 
get that  pointedly  and  with  a  special  mysterious 
determination  the  search,  which  in  its  issue 
placed  him  among  the  saved,  was  instituted  and 
pursued  for  him  on  the  part  of  God  and  Christ? 
Let  us  not  from  hyper-altruistic  sqeamishness 
allow  ourselves  to  gloss  this  over,  for,  besides 
withholding  from  God  the  glory  which  is  his 
due  in  it,  we  should  lose  for  ourselves  the  most 
precious  portion  of  God's  saving  grace.  It  is  not 
as  if  Christ  at  random  wandered  through  this 
world  on  the  chance  of  finding  some  one  upon 
whom  to  exercise  his  power  of  salvation.    With 


SEEKING     AND     SAVING     THE     LOST  83 

reference  to  each  one  of  the  children  of  God 
there  was  with  Him  from  the  beginning  a  unique 
compassion,  a  personalized  love,  and  in  result  of 
this  a  singleness  and  determination  of  purpose, 
that  imparted  to  his  seeking  of  the  least  one  of 
us  the  glory  of  a  private  inclusion  in  the  intimate 
circle  of  God's  saved  ones.  Of  such  seeking 
Jesus  was  conscious,  and  with  all  the  wideness 
of  his  compassionate  heart,  which  no  world  of 
sinners  could  overcrowd,  He  was  not  ashamed 
to  acknowledge  the  gracious  privileges  and 
distinctions  that  pertained  to  the  Lord's 
people  or  to  any  individual  child  of  God.  On 
this  very  occasion  He  gave  expression  to  them  in 
the  words :  "Inasmuch  as  he  also  is  a  son  of  Abra- 
ham," words  which  trace  back  the  blessed  issue 
of  Zacchaeus'  encounter  with  Jesus  to  the  cove- 
nantal  promise  made  ages  before  to  the  patri- 
arch, and  ultimately  to  the  sovereign  election  of 
which  this  promise  was  the  outcome.  It  is  with 
this  as  it  is  with  the  Pauline  statement :  no  more 
than  one  can  say,  "Who  loved  me  and  gave 
Himself  for  me,"  is  itj  possible  to  say.  Who 
sought  me  and  saved  me,  except  by  a  profound 
faith  in  the  elective  purpose  as  the  ultimate 
cause  of  the  personal  inheritance  of  salvation. 
Now  what  in  conclusion"  are  the  lessons  that 
we,  seekers  of  the  salvation  of  others,  ought  to 
draw  from  this  episode  in  our  Lord's  life?  They 
are  chiefly  two,  and  I  shall  indicate  them  with  the 
briefest  of  words.  The  first  relates  to  the  spe- 
cialized character  we  as  servants  of  Christ  ought 
to  make  our  work  to  bear.    If  his  procedure  is 


84  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

normative  for  us — and  who  would  deny  this? — 
then  all  our  seeking  and  saving,  that  is,  all 
our  religious  endeavor,  ought  to  carry  the  image 
and  superscription  of  Christ's.  And  here  the 
salient  point  is  undoubtedly  this,  that  the  pur- 
pose, the  goal  of  seeking  and  saving  were  for 
our  Lord  pronouncedly  religious.  Seeking  and 
saving  meant  for  Him,  before  aught  else,  seek- 
ing and  saving  for  God.  It  had  no  humanitarian 
or  world-improving  purpose  apart  from  this.  It 
began  with  the  thought  of  God  and  ended  there. 
For  that  He  came.  And  at  that  we  should  aim. 
This  conception  will  not  narrow  our  work  any 
more  than  it  did  his,  it  will  only  centralize  it. 
Beginning  there  we  shall  find  that  everything 
else  will  follow  that  ought  to  follow.  Was  it  not 
so  in  the  case  of  Zacchaeus?  Once  Jesus  had 
entered  his  house  with  salvation,  he  could  not 
help  taking  his  stand  as  one  morally  and  soci- 
ally reconstructed  before  the  crowd  of  detrac- 
tors :  "Behold,  Lord,  the  half  of  my  goods  I  give 
to  the  poor;  and  if  I  have  wrongfully  exacted 
aught  of  any  man,  I  restore  fourfold."  Pro- 
vided the  precious  nard  of  religion  be  poured 
into  it,  no  vessel  is  unworthy.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  finest  flagon  of  the  world,  when  bear- 
ing a  false  trademark,  and  under  the  guise  of 
religion  offering  some  inferior  substitute,  has 
no  proper  place  in  the  service  of  Christ.  It  be- 
longs to  the  hidden  things  of  shame  which  Paul 
had  discarded.  No  servant  of  Christ  should 
touch  it.  And  even  though  other  things  be  not 
positively  deceitful  or  harmful  in  themselves,  our 
duty  of  bringing  salvation  is  so  transcendently 
important  and  exacting  that  the  Christian  min- 


SEEKING     AND     SAVING     THE     LOST  85 

ister  cannot  afford  to  lose  time  or  energy  over 
them. 

The  second  lesson  relates  to  what  our  speci- 
fically religious  task  of  saving  should  centrally 
consist  in.  It  may  all  be  summed  up  in  the  sim- 
ple formula,  to  bring  Christ  to  men  and  men  to 
Christ.  It  sounds  simple,  but  is  in  reality  a  most 
difficult  and  most  delicate  task.  No  painter  por- 
traying face  upon  canvass  ever  used  more  ex- 
quisite art  than  is  his  who  is  preaching  the  gospel 
succeeds  in  so  delineating  the  face  of  Christ  as 
to  make  Him  look  out  with  his  immortal  Savior- 
eyes  straight  and  deep  into  the  hearts  of  sinners. 
Let  your  one  concern  be  to  bring  the  two  to- 
gether in  the  house  where  salvation  is  needed, 
and  having  led  the  Savior  in,  go  thou  out  and 
shut  the  door  silently  behind  thee.  I  tell  you 
they  shall  not  come  out  thence  until  salvation 
has  done  its  perfect  work. 


IV.    "Rabboni!" 


The  Gospel  according  to  John, 
XX,  16:  "Jesus  saith  unto  her, 
Mary.  She  turneth  herself  and 
saith  unto  Him  in  Hebrew,  Rab- 
boni;  which  is  to  say.  Master." 


R  A  B  B  0  N  I  89 


r^UR  text  takes  us  to  the  tomb  of  the  risen 
^  Lord,  on  the  first  Sabbath-morning  of  the 
New  Covenant.  It  is  impossible  for  us  to  im- 
agine a  spot  more  radiant  with  light  and  joy 
than  was  this  immediately  after  the  resurrec- 
tion. Even  when  thinking  ourselves  back  into 
the  preceding  moments,  while  as  yet  to  the  ex- 
ternal eye  there  was  nothing  but  the  darkness  of 
death,  our  anticipation  of  what  we  know  to  be 
about  to  happen  floods  the  scene  with  a  twilight 
of  supernatural  splendor.  The  sepulchre  itself 
has  become  to  us  prophetic  of  victory ;  we  seem 
to  hear  in  the  expectant  air  the  wingbeat 
of  the  descending  angels,  come  to  roll  away  the 
stone  and  announce  to  us:  "The  Lord  is  risen 
indeed !"  Besides  this,  we  have  learned  to  read 
the  story  of  our  Lord's  life  and  death  so  as  to 
consider  the  resurrection  its  only  possible  out- 
come, and  this  has  to  some  extent  dulled  our 
sense  for  the  startling  character  of  what  took 
place.  We  interpret  the  resurrection  in  terms 
of  the  atoning  cross,  and  easily  forget  how  little 
the  disciples  were  as  yet  prepared  for  doing  the 
same.  And  so  it  requires  an  effort  on  our  part 
to  understand  sympathetically  the  state  of  mind 
they  brought  to  the  morning  of  this  day.  Never- 
theless we  must  try  to  enter  into  their  thoughts 
and  feelings,  if  for  no  other  reason,  for  this, 
that  something  of  the  same  fresh  marvel  and 
gladness  that  subsequently  came  to  them  may 
fill  our  hearts  also.    Whether  we  mav  be  able  to 


90  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

explain  it  or  not,  the  Gospel  tells  us,  that,  not- 
withstanding the  emphatic  prediction  by  the 
Savior  of  his  death  and  resurrection,  they  had 
but  little  remembrance  of  these  words,  and  drew 
from  them  no  practical  support  or  comfort  in 
the  sorrow  that  overwhelmed  them.  In  part  this 
may  have  been  due  to  the  fact  of  our  Lord's 
having  only  predicted  and  not  fully  explained 
these  tremendous  events.  At  any  rate  the  cir- 
cumstance shows  that  there  is  need  of  a  deeper 
faith  than  that  of  mere  acquaintance  with  and 
consent  to  external  statements  of  truth,  when 
the  dread  realities  of  life  and  death  assail  us. 
Dare  we  say  that  we  ourselves  should  have 
proved  stronger  in  such  a  trial,  if  over  against 
all  that  mocked  our  hope  we  had  been  able  to 
place  no  more  than  a  dimly  remembered  prom- 
ise? Let  us  thank  God  that,  when  we  ourselves 
enter  into  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  we 
have  infinitely  more  than  a  promise  to  stay  our 
hearts  upon,  that  ours  is  the  fulfilment  of  the 
promise,  the  fact  of  the  resurrection,  nay  the 
risen  Lord  Himself  present  with  rod  and  staff 
beside  us. 

Supplementing  the  account  of  John  with  the 
statements  of  the  other  Evangelists,  we  gain  the 
following  conception  of  the  course  of  events  pre- 
vious to  what  the  text  relates.  A  small  com- 
pany of  women  went  out  at  early  dawn  towards 
the  garden,  carrying  the  spices  prepared  as  a 
last  offering  to  honor  Jesus.  From  among  these 
Mary  Magdalene  in  the  eagerness  of  her  desire 
to  reach  the  place,  ran  forward,  and  discovered 
before  the  others  that  the  stone  had  been  rolled 
away.     Without  awaiting  the  arrival  of  her 


RABBONI  91 

companions  she  hastens  back  to  tell  Peter  and 
John  what  she  supposed  to  be  true :  "They  have 
taken  away  the  Lord  out  of  the  tomb."  Roused 
from  the  lethargy  of  their  grief  by  this  startling 
announcement  the  Apostles  immediately  went  to 
the  place,  and  by  their  own  observation  verified 
Mary's  report.  John  came  first,  but  merely 
looked  into  the  tomb.  Peter,  who  followed,  en- 
tered in,  and  beheld  the  linen  cloths  lying  and 
the  napkin  that  was  upon  the  Savior's  head 
rolled  up  and  put  by  itself.  Then  entered  in 
John  also  and  saw  and  believed.  For  as  yet  they 
knew  not  the  Scripture  that  He  must  rise  again 
from  the  dead.  Their  eyes  were  so  holden  that 
the  true  explanation  never  occurred  to  them. 
Perplexed,  but  not  moved  from  a  despairing 
state  of  mind,  they  returned  to  their  abode. 

Mary  must  have  followed  the  Apostles  at  a 
distance  when  these  came  in  haste  to  see  for 
themselves.  We  find  her  standing  without 
the  tomb  weeping.  Is  it  not  remarkable  that, 
while  both  John  and  Peter  departed,  Mary  re- 
mained? Although  the  same  hopeless  conclu- 
sion had  forced  itself  upon  her,  yet  it  could  not 
induce  her  to  leave.  In  her  mind  it  only  intensi- 
fied a  thousand  times  the  purpose  with  which 
she  had  come.  How  striking  an  illustration  of 
the  Savior's  word  that  much  forgiveness  creates 
abounding  love!  But  may  we  not  believe  that 
still  something  else  reveals  itself  in  this?  Mary's 
attitude  towards  Jesus,  more  perhaps  than  any 
other  disciple's  seems  to  have  been  character- 
ized by  that  simple  dependence,  which  is  but  the 
consciousness  of  an  ever  present  need.    It  was  a 


92  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

matter  of  faith,  as  much  as  of  love,  that  made 
her  differ  at  this  time  from  the  others.  Unmixed 
with  further  motives,  the  recognition  of  Jesus 
as  the  only  refuge  from  sin  and  death  filled  her 
heart.  In  a  measure,  of  course.  He  had  been 
this  to  the  others  also.  But  whilst  to  them  He 
stood  for  many  other  things  in  addition,  the  cir- 
cumstances under  which  she  had  become  at- 
tached to  Him  made  Mary's  soul  the  mirror  of 
saving  faith  pure  and  simple.  And  because  she 
was  animated  by  this  fundamental  spiritual  im- 
pulse, drawing  her  to  the  Savior  more  irresist- 
ibly than  affection  or  sorrow  could  have  done, 
therefore  she  could  not  but  continue  seeking 
Him,  even  though  unable  for  the  moment  to  do 
aught  else  than  weep  near  his  empty  tomb.  In 
vain  does  Calvary  proclaim  that  the  Lord  is 
dead,  in  vain  does  the  tomb  declare  that  He  has 
been  buried,  in  vain  does  the  absent  stone  suggest 
that  they  have  taken  Him  away — this  threefold 
witness  will  not  convince  Mary  that  He  has  gone 
out  of  her  life  forever.  And  why?  Because  in 
the  depth  of  her  being  there  was  an  even  more 
emphatic  witness  which  would  not  be  silenced 
but  continued  to  protest  that  she  must  receive 
Him  back,  since  He  is  her  Savior.  Contact,  com- 
munion with  Christ  had  become  to  her  the  vital 
breath  of  her  spiritual  life;  to  admit  that  the 
conditions  rendering  this  possible  had  ceased  to 
exist  would  have  meant  for  her  to  deny  salva- 
tion itself.  There  is,  it  is  true,  a  pathetic  incon- 
gruousness  between  the  absoluteness  of  this  de- 
sire and  the  futile  form  in  which  for  the  moment 
she  thought  it  could  be  satisfied.    In  the  last 


R  A  B  B  O  N  I  93 

analysis  what  was  she  doing  but  seeking  a  life- 
less body,  in  order  that  by  caring  for  it  and  feel- 
ing near  it  she  might  still  the  longing  of  a  living 
faith?  Suppose  she  had  received  what  she 
sought,  would  not  in  the  next  moment  the  other 
deeper  desire  have  reasserted  itself  for  that  in 
Him  which  it  was  absolutely  beyond  the  power 
of  a  dead  Jesus  to  give  her?  Still,  however  in- 
congrous  the  form  of  expression,  it  was  an  in- 
stinct to  which  an  outward  reality  could  not  fail 
to  correspond.  It  arose  out  of  a  primary  need, 
for  which  provision  must  exist  somewhere,  if 
redemption  exists  at  all.  Though  unaware  of 
the  resurrection  as  a  fact,  she  had  laid  hold  upon 
the  supreme  principle  from  which  its  necessity 
flows.  Once  given  the  intimate  bond  of  faith  be- 
tween a  sinner  and  his  Savior,  there  can  be  no 
death  to  such  a  relationship.  Mary,  in  her  simple 
dependence  on  Jesus,  had  risen  to  the  point 
where  she  sought  in  Him  life  and  sought  it  ever 
more  abundantly.  To  her  faith  He  was  Con- 
queror over  death  long  before  He  issued  from 
the  grave.  She  was  in  rapport  with  that  spiritual 
aspect,  that  quickening  quality  of  his  Person,  of 
which  the  resurrection  is  the  sure  consequenca 
Here  at  bottom  lies  the  decisive  issue  for  every- 
one as  regards  the  attitude  to  be  assumed 
towards  this  great  fact.  Ultimately,  stripped  of 
all  accidentals,  the  question  resolves  itself  into 
this:  What  means  Christ  for  us?  For  what  do 
we  need  Him?  If  we  have  learned  to  know  our- 
selves guilty  sinners,  destitute  of  all  hope  and 
life  in  ourselves,  and  if  we  have  experienced  that 
from    Him    came    to    us    pardon,    peace    and 


y 


94  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

strength,  will  it  not  sound  like  mockery  in  our 
ears,  if  somebody  tells  us,  that  it  does  not  mat- 
ter, whether  Jesus  rose  from  the  dead  on  the 
third  day?  It  is  of  the  very  essence  of  saving 
faith  that  it  clamors  for  facts,  facts  to  show  that 
the  heavens  have  opened,  that  the  tide  of  sinful 
nature  has  been  reversed,  the  guilt  of  sin  ex- 
piated, the  reign  of  death  destroyed  and  life  and 
immortality  brought  to  light.  And  because  this 
is  the  insuppressible  cry  of  faith,  what  else 
should  faith  do,  when  it  sees  doubt  and  unbelief 
emptying  the  Gospel  of  the  living  Christ,  what 
else  should  it  do  but  stand  outside  weeping  and 
repeating  the  plaint:  They  have  taken  away 
my  Lord  and  I  know  not  where  they  have  laid 
Him? 

But,  although  these  things  were  in  principle 
present  in  Mary's  heart,  she  did  not  at  that  mo- 
ment perceive  the  pledge  of  hope  contained  in 
them.  Her  grief  was  too  profound  to  leave  room 
for  introspection.  It  even  hid  from  her  vision 
the  objective  evidence  of  the  resurrection  that 
lay  around  her.  Worse  than  this,  she  turned 
what  was  intended  to  help  her  into  an  additional 
reason  for  unbelief.  But  who  of  us  shall  blame 
her?  Have  not  we  ourselves  under  as  favorable 
circumstances  made  the  mistake  of  nourishing 
our  unbelief  on  what  was  meant  to  be  food  for 
our  faith?  Do  we  not  all  remember  occasions 
when  we  stood  outside  the  grave  of  our  hopes 
weeping,  and  did  not  perceive  the  hand  stretched 
out  to  prepare  us  by  the  very  thing  we  inter- 
preted as  sorrow  for  a  higher  joy?  From  Mary's 
experience  let  us  learn  to  do  better.    What  the 


R  A  B  B  0  N  I  95 

Lord  expects  from  us  at  such  seasons  is  not  to 
abandon  ourselves  to  unreasoning  sorrow,  but 
trustingly  to  look  sorrow  in  the  face,  to  scan  its 
features,  to  search  for  the  help  and  hope,  which, 
as  surely  as  God  is  our  Father,  must  be  there. 
In  such  trials  there  can  be  no  comfort  for  us  so 
long  as  we  stand  outside  weeping.  If  only  we 
will  take  the  courage  to  fix  our  gaze  deliberately 
upon  the  stern  countenance  of  grief,  and  enter 
unafraid  into  the  darkest  recesses  of  our  trouble, 
we  shall  find  the  terror  gone,  because  the  Lord 
has  been  there  before  us,  and,  coming  out  again, 
has  left  the  place  transfigured,  making  out  of  it 
by  the  grace  of  his  resurrection  a  house  of  life, 
the  very  gate  of  heaven. 

This  was  just  what  happened  to  Mary.  Not 
forever  could  she  stand  weeping,  forgetful  of 
what  went  on  around  her.  "As  she  wept  she 
looked  into  the  tomb,  and  she  beholdeth  two 
angels  in  white  sitting  one  at  the  head  and  one 
at  the  feet,  where  the  body  of  Jesus  had  lain." 
It  was  a  step  in  the  right  direction  that  she 
roused  herself  from  her  inaction.  Still,  what 
strikes  us  as  most  characteristic  in  this  state- 
ment is  its  implying  that  even  the  vision  of 
angels  did  not  sufl^ciently  impress  her  to  raise 
the  question,  to  what  the  appearance  of  these 
celestial  messengers  might  be  due.  Probably  this 
was  the  first  time  she  had  come  in  direct  contact 
with  the  supernatural  in  that  particular  form. 
The  place  was  doubtless  charged  with  the  atmos- 
phere of  mystery  and  wonder  angels  bring  with 
themselves  when  entering  into  our  world  of 
sense.    And  yet  no  tremor  seems  to  have  run 


96  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

through  her,  no  feeling  of  awe  to  have  made  her 
draw  back.  A  greater  blindness  to  fact  is  here 
than  that  which  made  her  miss  the  sign  of  the 
empty  grave.  What  more  convincing  evidence 
of  the  truth  of  the  resurrection  could  have  been 
offered  than  the  presence  of  these  two  angels, 
silently,  reverently,  majestically  sitting  where 
the  body  of  Jesus  had  lain?  Placed  like  the 
Cherubim  on  the  mercy-seat,  they  covered  be- 
tween themselves  the  spot  where  the  Lord  had 
reposed,  and  flooded  it  with  celestial  glory.  It 
needed  no  voice  of  theirs  to  proclaim  that  here 
death  had  been  swallowed  up  in  victory.  Ever 
since  the  angels  descended  into  this  tomb  the 
symbolism  of  burial  has  been  radically  changed. 
From  this  moment  onward  every  last  resting- 
place  where  the  bodies  of  believers  are  laid  is  a 
furrow  in  that  great  harvest  field  of  Christ 
whence  heaven  draws  upward  into  light  each 
seed  sunk  into  it,  whence  Christ  himself  was 
raised,  the  first  fruits  of  them  that  sleep. 

Let  us  not  overlook,  however,  that  Mary's  dis- 
regard of  the  angels  revealed  in  a  most  striking 
form  something  good  also,  to-wit :  her  intense 
preoccupation  with  the  one  thought  of  finding 
the  Lord.  For  Him  she  had  been  looking  into 
the  tomb.  He  not  being  there,  it  was  empty  to 
her  view,  though  filled  with  angelic  glory.  She 
would  have  turned  aside  without  speaking,  had 
not  the  angels  of  their  own  accord  spoken  to 
her:  "Woman,  why  weepest  thou?"  These 
words  were  meant  as  an  expression  of  sympathy 
quite  natural  in  beings  wont  to  rejoice  over  re- 
penting sinners.    But  in  this  question  there  is  at 


R  A  B  B  O  N  I  -  97 

the  same  time  a  note  of  wonder  at  the  fact  that 
she  should  be  weeping  at  all.  To  the  mind  of  the 
angels  the  resurrection  was  so  real,  so  self-evi- 
dent, that  they  could  scarcely  understand  how 
to  her  it  could  be  otherwise.  They  felt,  as  it 
were,  the  discord  between  the  songs  of  joy  with 
which  their  own  world  was  jubilant,  and  this 
sound  of  weeping  coming  out  of  a  world  of  dark- 
ness and  despair.  "Woman,  why  weepest  thou?" 
Tears  would  be  called  for  indeed,  hadst  thou 
found  Him  in  the  tomb,  but  not  at  a  time  like 
this,  when  heaven  and  earth  unite  in  announc- 
ing :    He  is  risen  in  glory,  the  King  of  life ! 

Mary's  answer  to  the  angels  shows  that 
neither  their  sympathy  nor  their  wonder  had 
succeeded  in  piercing  her  sorrow.  "She  saith 
unto  them.  Because  they  have  taken  away  my 
Lord,  and  I  know  not  where  they  have  laid  Him." 
These  are  almost  the  identical  words  in  which 
she  had  informed  Peter  and  John  of  her  dis- 
covery of  the  empty  tomb.  Still  a  slight  change 
appears.  To  the  Apostles  she  had  said  "the 
Lord"  and  "we  know  not."  To  the  angels  it  is : 
"my  Lord"  and  "I  know  not."  In  this  is  revealed 
once  more  her  intense  sense  of  proprietorship  in 
Jesus.  In  that  sense  the  angels  could  not  have 
appropriated  Him  for  themselves.  They  might 
hail  Him  as  their  matchless  King,  but  to  Mary 
He  was  even  more  than  this,  her  Lord,  her 
Savior,  the  One  who  had  sought  and  saved  and 
owned  her  in  her  sins. 

Having  given  this  answer  to  the  angels  she 
turned  herself  backward  and  beheld  Jesus  stand- 
ing, and  knew  not  that  it  was  Jesus.    No  expla- 


98  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

nation  is  added  of  the  cause  of  this  movement. 
It  matters  little.  Our  interest  at  this  stage  of 
the  narrative  belongs  not  to  what  Mary  but  to 
what  Jesus  did.  On  his  part  the  encounter  was 
surely  not  accidental  but  intended.  He  had  wit- 
nessed her  coming  once  and  again,  her  weeping, 
her  bending  over  the  tomb,  her  answer  to  the 
angels,  and  had  witnessed  not  only  these  out- 
ward acts,  but  also  the  inward  conflict  by  which 
her  soul  was  torn.  And  He  appears  precisely  at 
the  point  where  his  presence  is  required,  be- 
cause all  other  voices  for  conveying  to  her  the 
gladsome  tidings  have  failed.  He  had  been  hold- 
ing Himself  in  readiness  to  become  in  his  own 
Person  the  preacher  of  the  Gospel  of  life  and 
hope  to  Mary.  There  is  great  comfort  for  us  in 
this  thought  that,  however  dim  our  conscious 
faith  and  the  sense  of  our  salvation,  on  the 

^  Lord's  side  the  fountain  of  grace  is  never  closed, 
its  connection  with  our  souls  never  interrupted ; 
provided  there  be  the  irrepressible  demand  for 
his  presence.  He  cannot.  He  will  not  deny  Him- 
self to  us.  The  first  person  to  whom  He  showed 
Himself  alive  after  the  resurrection  was  a  weep- 
ing woman,  who  had  no  greater  claim  upon  Him 

J  than  any  simple  penitent  sinner  has.  No  eye 
except  that  of  the  angels  had  as  yet  rested  upon 
His  form.  The  time  was  as  solemn  and  majestic 
as  that  of  the  first  creation  when  light  burst  out 
of  chaos  and  darkness.  Heaven  and  earth  were 
concerned  in  this  event ;  it  was  the  turning-point 
of  the  ages.  Nor  was  this  merely  objectively  so : 
Jesus  felt  Himself  the  central  figure  in  this  new- 
born universe,  He  tasted  the  exquisite  joy  of  one 


R  A  B  B  O  N  I  99 

who  had  just  entered  upon  an  endless  life  in  the 
possession  of  new  powers  and  faculties  such  as 
human  nature  had  never  known  before.  Would 
it  have  been  unnatural,  had  He  sought  some 
quiet  place  to  spend  the  opening  hour  of  this  new 
unexplored  state  in  communion  with  the 
Father?  Can  there  be  any  room  in  his  mind  for 
the  humble  ministry  of  consolation  required  by 
Mary?  He  answers  these  questions  Himself. 
Among  all  the  voices  that  hailed  his  triumph  no 
voice  appealed  to  Him  like  this  voice  of  weeping 
in  the  garden.  The  first  appearance  of  the  risen 
Lord  was  given  to  Mary  for  no  other  reason  than 
that  she  needed  Him  first  and  needed  Him  most. 
And  what  more  appropriate  beginning  could 
have  been  set  for  his  ministry  of  glory  than  this 
very  act?  Nothing  could  better  convince  us,  that 
in  his  exalted  state  He  retains  for  us  the  same 
tender  sympathy,  the  same  individual  affection 
as  He  showed  during  the  days  of  his  flesh.  It  is 
well  for  us  to  know  this,  because  otherwise  the 
dread  impression  of  his  majesty  might  tend  to 
hinder  our  approach  to  Him.  Who  of  us 
has  not  at  some  time  of  communion  with  the 
Savior  felt  the  overwhelming  awe  that  seized 
the  seer  on  Patmos,  so  that  we  could  not  utter 
our  prayer,  until  He  laid  his  hand  upon  us  and 
said:  Fear  not.  We  should  be  thankful,  then,  for 
the  grace  of  Christ  which  has  so  arranged  it, 
that  between  his  rising  from  the  dead  and  his 
departure  for  heaven  a  season  of  forty  days  was 
interposed,  a  transition  period,  helping,  as  it 
were,  the  feebleness  of  our  faith  in  the  act  of 
apprehending  his  glory.    Perhaps  the  Lord  for 


100  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

the  same  reason  also  intentionally  placed  his 
meeting  with  Mary  at  the  threshold  of  his  resur- 
rection-life. Like  other  acts  recorded  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel  this  act  rises  above  the  momen- 
tary situation  and  acquires  a  symbolic  signific- 
ance, enlarging  before  our  eyes  until  it  reveals 
Him  in  his  priestly  ministration  conducted  from 
the  throne  of  glory. 

However  not  the  fact  only  of  his  showing 
Himself  to  Mary,  but  likewise  the  manner  of  it 
claims  our  attention.  When  first  beholding  Him 
she  did  not  know  the  Lord,  and  even  after  his 
speech  she  still  supposed  Him  to  be  the  gardener. 
The  chief  cause  for  this  may  have  lain  in  the 
change  which  had  taken  place  in  Him  when  the 
mortal  put  on  immortality.  Now  behold  with 
what  exquisite  tact  the  Lord  helps  her  to  restore 
the  broken  bond  between  the  image  her  memory 
retained  of  Him  and  that  new  image  in  which 
henceforth  He  would  walk  through  her  life  and 
hold  converse  with  her  spirit.  Even  these  first 
words :  "Women  why  weepest  thou  ?  Whom  seek- 
est  thou?  "though  in  form  scarcely  differing  from 
the  question  of  the  angels,  go  far  beyond  the 
latter  in  their  power  to  reach  Mary's  heart.  In 
the  word  "woman"  with  which  He  addresses  her 
speaks  all  the  majesty  of  one  who  felt  Himself 
the  Son  of  God  in  power  by  resurrection  from 
the  dead.  It  is  a  prelude  to  the  still  more  majes- 
tic, "Touch  me  not"  spoken  soon  afterwards. 
And  yet  in  the  words,  "Why  weepest  thou? 
Whom  seekest  thou?"  He  extends  to  her  that 
heart-searching  sympathy,  which  at  a  single 
glance  can  read  and  understand  the  whole  secret 


R  A  B  B  0  N  I  101 

of  her  sorrow.  He  knew  that  such  weeping 
results  only  there  where  one  who  is  more  than 
father  or  mother  has  been  taken  away.  And 
how  instantaneous  the  effect  these  words  pro- 
duced !  Though  she  still  supposes  him  the  gar- 
dener, she  takes  for  granted  that  he  at  least 
could  not  have  taken  the  body  with  evil  intent, 
that  he  will  not  refuse  to  restore  it :  "Sir,  if  thou 
hast  born  Him  hence,  tell  me  where  thou  hast 
laid  Him,  and  I  will  take  Him  away."  A  certain 
response  to  his  sympathy  is  also  shown  in  this, 
that  three  times  she  refers  to  Jesus  as  "Him," 
deeming  it  unnecessary  to  mention  his  name. 
Thus  in  the  way  she  met  the  gardener  there  was 
already  the  beginning  resumption  of  the  bond 
of  confidence  between  her  and  the  Lord.  And 
thus  Jesus  found  the  way  prepared  for  making 
Himself  known  to  her  in  a  most  intimate  man- 
ner. "Jesus  saith  unto  her  'Mary.'  She  turneth 
and  saith  unto  Him,  'Rabboni'."  It  happened  all 
in  a  moment,  and  by  a  simple  word,  and  yet  in 
this  one  moment  Mary's  world  was  changed  for 
her.  She  had  in  that  instant  made  the  transi- 
tion from  hopelessness  because  Jesus  was  absent, 
to  fullness  of  joy  because  Christ  was  there.  We 
may  well  despair  of  conveying  by  any  process  of 
exposition  the  meaning  of  these  two  words.  This 
is  speech  the  force  of  which  can  only  be  felt. 
And  it  will  be  felt  by  us  in  proportion  as  we 
clearly  remember  some  occasion  when  the  Lord 
spake  a  similar  word  to  us  and  drew  from  us  a 
similar  cry  of  recognition.  Doubtless  much  of 
the  magical  effect  of  Jesus'  word  was  due  to  the 
tone  in  which  He  spoke  it.    It  was  a  tone  calling 


102  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

to  her  remembrance  the  former  days  of  closest 
fellowship.  This  was  the  voice  that  He  alone 
could  use,  the  same  voice  that  had  once  com- 
manded the  demons  to  depart  from  her,  and  to 
which  ever  since  she  had  been  wont  to  listen  for 
guidance  and  comfort.  By  using  it  He  meant  to 
assure  her,  that,  whatever  transformation  had 
taken  place,  there  could  be  and  would  be  no 
change  in  the  intimate,  personal  character  of 
their  relationship.  And  Mary  was  quick  to  ap- 
prehend this.  The  Evangelist  takes  pains  to 
preserve  for  us  the  word  she  uttered  in  its  origi- 
nal Aramaic  form,  because  he  would  have  us 
understand  that  it  meant  more  at  this  moment 
than  could  be  conveyed  by  the  ordinary  render- 
ing of  "Teacher"  or  "Master."  "Rabboni"  has  a 
special  untranslatable  significance.  It  was  the 
personal  response  to  the  personal  "Mary,"  to  all 
intents  a  proper  name  no  less  than  the  other.  By 
speaking  it  Mary  consciously  re-entered  upon 
the  possession  of  all  that  as  Rabboni  He  had 
meant  to  her.  Only  one  thing  she  had  yet  to 
learn,  for  teaching  her  which  the  Lord  did  not 
deem  even  this  unique  moment  too  joyful  or 
sacred.  In  the  sudden  revulsion  from  her  grief 
Mary  would  have  given  some  external  expres- 
sion to  the  tumult  within  by  grasping  and  hold- 
ing Him.  But  He  restrained  her,  saying:  "Touch 
me  not,  for  I  am  not  yet  ascended  unto  the 
Father;  but  go  unto  my  brethren  and  say  to 
them,  I  ascend  unto  my  Father  and  your  Father, 
and  my  God  and  your  God."  At  first  sight  these 
words  may  seem  a  contrast  to  those  immediately 
preceding.    And  yet  no  mistake  could  be  greater 


R  ABB  ONI  103 

than  to  suppose  that  the  Lord's  sole  or  chief  pur- 
pose was  to  remind  her  of  the  restrictions  which 
henceforth  were  to  govern  the  intercourse  be- 
tween Himself  and  her.  His  intention  was  much 
rather  to  show  that  the  desire  for  a  real  com- 
munion of  life  would  soon  be  met  in  a  new  and 
far  higher  way  than  was  possible  under  the 
conditions  of  local  earthly  nearness.  "Touch  me 
not"  does  not  mean :  Touch  is  too  close  a  contact 
to  be  henceforth  permissible ;  it  means :  the  pro- 
vision for  the  highest,  the  ideal  kind  of  touch 
has  not  been  completed  yet :  "  I  am  not  yet 
ascended  to  my  Father."  His  words  are  a  denial 
of  the  privilege  she  craved  only  as  to  the  form 
and  moment  in  which  she  craved  it;  in  their 
larger  sense  they  are  a  pledge,  a  giving,  not  a 
withholding  of  Himself  from  her.  The  great 
event  of  which  the  resurrection  is  the  first  step 
has  not  yet  fulfilled  itself;  it  requires  for  its 
completion  the  ascent  to  the  Father.  But  when 
once  this  is  accomplished  then  all  restrictions 
will  fall  away,  and  the  desire  to  touch  that  made 
Mary  stretch  forth  her  hand  shall  be  gratified  to 
its  full  capacity.  The  thought  is  not  different 
from  that  expressed  in  the  earlier  saying  to  the 
disciples :  "Ye  shall  see  me  because  I  go  to  the 
Father."  There  is  a  seeing,  a  hearing,  a  touch- 
ing, first  made  possible  by  Jesus'  entrance  into 
heaven  and  by  the  gift  of  the  Spirit  dependent 
on  that  entrance.  And  what  He  said  to  Mary  He 
commissioned  her  to  repeat  to  his  brethren,  that 
they  also  might  be  taught  to  view  the  event  in 
its  proper  perspective.  May  we  not  fitly  close 
our  study  of  the  text  with  reminding  ourselves. 


104  GRACE      AND      GLOR\ 

that  we  too  are  included  among  the  brethren  to 
whom  He  desired  these  tidings  to  be  brought? 
Before  this  He  had  never  called  the  disciples  by 
this  name,  as  He  had  never  until  now  so  sugges- 
tively identified  Himself  with  them  by  speaking 
of  "your  Father  and  my  Father"  and  "your  God 
and  my  God."  We  are  once  more  assured  that 
the  new  life  of  glory,  instead  of  taking  Him  from 
us,  has  made  us  in  a  profounder  sense  his  breth- 
ren and  his  Father  our  Father.  Though,  unlike 
Mary  and  the  disciples,  we  have  not  been  privi- 
leged to  behold  Him  in  the  body,  yet  together 
with  the  believers  of  all  ages  we  have  an  equal 
share  in  what  is  far  sweeter  and  more  precious, 
the  touch  through  faith  of  his  heavenly  Person 
for  which  the  appearances  after  the  resurrec- 
tion were  but  a  preparation.  Let  us  then  not 
linger  at  the  tomb,  but  turn  our  faces  and  stretch 
our  hands  upwards  into  heaven,  where  our  life  is 
hid  with  Him  in  God,  and  whence  He  shall  also 
come  again  to  show  Himself  to  us  as  He  did  to 
Mary,  to  make  us  speak  the  last  great  "Rab- 
boni,"  which  will  spring  to  the  lips  of  all  the  re- 
deemed, when  they  meet  their  Savior  in  the  early 
davm  of  that  eternal  Sabbath  that  awaits  the 
people  of  God. 


V.     The  More  Excellent  Ministry 


The  Second  Epistle  of  Paul  to 
the  Corinthians,  III,  18:  "But  we 
all,  with  unveiled  face,  beholding 
as  in  a  mirror  the  glory  of  the 
Lord,  are  transformed  into  the 
same  image  from  glory  to  glory, 
even  as  from  the  Lord,  the  Spirit." 


THE     MORE     EXCELLENT     MINISTRY  107 


nPHIS  second  letter  of  Paul  to  the  Church  at 
Corinth  is  marked  by  a  pronounced  polemic 
strain.  In  this  respect  it  somewhat  resembles 
the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians.  In  each  instance  a 
serious  crisis  in  the  life  of  the  church  had 
evoked  it.  It  is  further  common  to  both  writings 
that  in  certain  passages  the  polemic  assumes  a 
sharply  personal  character.  In  neither  case  is 
this  due  to  any  temperamental  difficulty  on 
PauFs  part  to  control  his  outraged  feelings,  al- 
though even  if  this  had  been  so,  much  could  have 
been  said  in  excuse  of  the  Apostle.  His 
opponents  had  certainly  not  been  sparing 
in  personalities.  He  had  been  represented 
as  a  deceiver,  as  one  who  preached  him- 
self and  praised  himself.  It  had  been  charged 
that  in  his  quasi- Apostolic  authority  he  lorded  it 
over  the  church,  employed  his  usurped  power 
for  casting  down  instead  of  for  building  up,  and 
that,  in  spite  of  all  this  bluff  and  bluster  of  pres- 
tige, he  lacked  the  ability  to  make  good  his  pre- 
tensions, being  indeed  weighty  and  strong  in  his 
letters,  but  weak  in  his  bodily  presence,  and  in 
his  speech,  of  no  account.  The  insinuation  had 
been  made  that  Paul  himself  was  aware  of  the 
hollowness  of  his  claims,  because  he  would  not 
take  from  the  church  the  support  to  which,  if  a 
true  Apostle,  he  ought  to  have  felt  himself  en- 
titled. He  had  been  held  up  as  a  man  who  by  his 
fickleness,  his  yea  yea,  nay  nay,  betrayed  the 
duplicity  of  his  position.    The  Apostle  had  not 


108  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

even  been  spared  that  meanest  of  all  aspersions 
— that  he  was  spending  money  collected  for  the 
poor  saints  in  Judea  on  his  own  person.  His  sin- 
cerity as  a  minister  of  the  truth  had  been  called 
into  question.  It  was  charged  that,  while  aware 
of  his  subordination  to  the  original  Apostles,  he 
was  disloyal  to  them,  and  substituted  for  their 
gospel  an  entirely  different  one  spun  out  of  his 
own  mind.  Thus  the  truth  of  the  very  substance 
of  his  preaching  w^as  challenged.  In  this  respect 
again  a  certain  resemblance  to  the  tactics  of  his 
Galatian  opponents  may  be  observed.  The  charge 
in  both  instances  was  that  he  preached  "a  differ- 
ent gospel."  Nevertheless  the  point  of  attack 
had  been  somewhat  shifted.  In  Galatia  the  main 
question  had  been  that  of  salvation  with  or  with- 
out the  law.  Here  in  Corinth,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  controversy  raged  around  Paul's  teaching 
concerning  the  Christ.  It  was  with  another 
Jesus  that  his  opponents  had  approached  the 
Corinthians.  No  effort  had  been  spared  to  prove 
this  the  true  Jesus,  by  the  side  of  whom  the 
Christ  of  Paul's  preaching  was  a  pure  figment 
of  the  imagination.  Suspicion  had  been  cast  on 
the  source  of  his  knowledge  of  the  Savior  on 
the  ground  that  the  visions  through  which  it  was 
obtained  belonged  to  the  class  of  wild,  fantastic 
experiences,  and  that  these  marked  Paul  as  one 
beside  himself,  not  merely  in  this  one  point,  but 
in  the  entire  tone  and  temper  of  his  religious  life. 
The  exalted,  spiritual,  heavenly  nature,  in  which 
his  gospel  clothed  the  glorified  Christ,  was  con- 
strued as  convincing  proof  of  the  darkness  and 
incomprehensibleness  of  the  Apostle's  message. 


THE     MORE     EXCELLENT     MINISTRY  109 

He  preached  a  Gospel  that  was  veiled.  And  over 
against  these  elusive  and  intangible  things  had 
been  placed  the  palpable  institutions  of  the 
Mosaic  Covenant,  carrying  with  them  the  de- 
mand for  a  Messiah  correspondingly  substantial 
and  realistic  in  his  make-up.  This  is  but  an 
early  illustration  of  the  principle  which  from 
that  time  onward  has  shaped  all  forms  of 
teaching  in  the  Church.  For  in  each  instance 
the  view  about  the  method  of  salvation 
is  reflected  in  the  conception  of  the  Savior. 
A  certain  Gospel  requires  a  certain  kind  of 
Christ,  and  a  certain  type  of  Christ  a  certain 
Gospel. 

It  might  have  seemed  as  if  the  attack  upon 
the  Apostle  had  therewith  reached  its  logical 
conclusion  and  could  not  possibly  go  farther. 
Still  this  was  not  the  case.  With  a  curious  retro- 
versive  movement  the  issue  had  been  carried 
back  from  this  point  to  the  question  of  the  per- 
sonality of  Paul,  with  this  difference  only — it 
was  now  his  dignity  in  office  that  had  been  as- 
sailed. Paul's  oflfice  as  such  was  made  out  to  be 
mean  and  contemptible.  Such  a  Christ  and  such 
a  cause  could  engage  one  who  labored  for  them 
only  in  the  weakest  and  most  ignoble  kind  of 
service.  Paul  was  not  permitted  to  escape 
the  immemorial  stigma  reflected  upon  the  min- 
ister from  the  apparent  foolishness  and  weak- 
ness of  the  cross.  And  the  Apostle  was  sensitive, 
if  anywhere,  on  this  point  of  the  nobility  and 
glory  of  his  oflfice.  Moral  aspersions  against  his 
character  he  might,  had  it  not  been  for  fear  of 
danger  to  the  churches,  have  passed  by  as  un- 


110  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

worthy  of  notice.  But  the  pride  of  office  was 
stronger  in  him  than  the  sense  of  personal  honor. 
And  thus  it  happens  that  we  are  indebted  to  these 
disturbers  of  the  Corinthian  church,  whose 
names  have  long  been  forgotten,  for  an  encomium 
upon  the  Gospel  service,  which  for  power  and 
splendor  has  no  equal  in  the  records  of  Christian 
apology.  It  deserves  to  be  placed  beside  the  song 
of  triumph  in  the  eighth  chapter  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans.  As  there  the  Apostle  is  carried 
on  the  crest-wave  of  assurance  of  salva- 
tion, so  here  he  moves  with  the  full  tide  of 
enthusiasm  over  the  excellence  of  his  calling. 
The  very  words  are,  as  it  were,  baptized  in  the 
glory  of  which  they  speak. 

Let  us  briefly  examine  the  several  elements 
that  enter  into  this  high  consciousness.  The 
form  of  argument  which  Paul  adopts  is  evi- 
dently determined  by  the  method  of  his  de- 
tractors. At  the  climax  of  their  calumny  they 
had  concentrated  their  attack  on  the  meanness 
and  weakness  of  his  message.  Consequently  he 
chooses  to  defend  himself  on  the  same  basis  by 
arguing  from  the  glory  of  the  message  to  the 
distinction  of  the  bearer.  While  thus  adjusted 
to  the  manner  of  attack,  this  method  was  also  in 
keeping  with  Paul's  innate  modesty,  still  further 
refined  by  grace.  But  there  was  another  tactical 
motive  besides.  Paul  recognized  that  by  thus 
approaching  the  subject  a  more  substantial  title 
to  official  prestige  could  be  made  out  than  in 
any  other  way,  such,  perhaps,  as  calling  atten- 
tion to  outward  results.  After  all  it  is  not  so 
much   by   what   the   minister   contributes   of 


THE     MORE     EXCELLENT     MINISTRY  m 

himself  to  the  cause  of  Christ,  but  rather 
by  what  he  is  enabled  to  draw  out  and  utilize 
from  the  divine  resources,  that  his  office 
and  work  will  be  tested.  It  is  not  chiefly  the 
question  whether  we  are  strong  in  the  cause,  but 
whether  the  cause  is  strong  in  and  through  us. 
And  herein  lies  the  practical  value  of  the  argu- 
ment in  its  application  to  the  servants  of  Christ 
under  all  conditions.  If  Paul  had  staked  the 
issue  on  the  personal  factor,  then  there  could  be 
in  his  testimony  but  little  comfort  and  encour- 
agement for  others,  for  there  are  not  many 
Pauls.  Now  that  the  subject  is  dealt  with  in  the 
other  way  the  Apostle's  words  contain  some- 
thing enheartening  for  you  and  me  and  the 
simplest,  obscurest  bearer  of  the  Gospel.  We  are 
too  often  told  at  the  present  day  that  the  official, 
professional  distinction  of  the  minister  is  a  mat- 
ter of  the  past,  that  it  has  become  purely  a  ques- 
tion of  what  is  called  personal  magnetism 
whether  he  shall  earn  success  or  failure.  Paul 
certainly  was  far  from  this  opinion.  To  be  sure, 
to  such  things  as  ecclesiastical  position  or  rank 
he  would  hardly  have  attributed  much  import- 
ance. Even  the  difference  between  the  Aposto- 
late  and  other  forms  of  service  in  the  Church 
seems  scarcely  to  enter  into  the  reckoning  here. 
But  within  the  realm  of  the  invisible  and  spirit- 
ual there  remains  such  a  thing  as  an  intrinsic 
prestige.  Paul  is  conscious  of  belonging  to  a 
veritable  elite  of  the  Spirit.  I  beg  you  to  notice 
on  how  large  a  scale  this  thought  is  projected. 
It  gives  rise  to  the  conception  of  a  ministry  of 
God's  covenant,  that  is,  a  ministry  identified  with 


112  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

an  all-comprehensive  dispensation  of  divine 
grace.  Thus  Moses  was  a  minister  of  the  Old  and 
Paul  is  a  minister  of  the  New  Covenant.  To  have 
such  a  Covenant-ministry  means  to  be  identified 
with  God  in  the  most  intimate  manner,  for  the 
Covenant  expresses  the  very  heart  of  God's  pur- 
pose. It  means  to  be  initiated  into  the  holiest 
mysteries  of  redemption,  for  in  the  Covenant 
these  are  transacted.  It  means  to  be  enrolled  on 
the  list  of  the  great  historic  servants  of  God,  for 
in  the  organism  of  the  Covenant  these  are  united 
and  salute  each  other  across  the  ages.  It  means 
to  become  a  channel  through  which  super- 
natural currents  flow.  In  the  Covenant  the  serv- 
ant is,  as  it  were,  made  part  of  the  wonder-world 
of  salvation  itself.  The  Apostle  has  embodied 
this  grandiose  thought  in  a  most  striking  figure. 
"Thanks  be  to  God,"  he  exclaims,  "who  always 
leadeth  us  in  triumph  in  Christ."  The  onward 
march  of  the  Gospel  is  a  triumphal  procession, 
God  the  victorious  Conqueror,  Paul  a  follower  in 
God's  train,  burning  the  incense  to  his  glory, 
making  manifest  the  savor  of  his  knowledge  in 
every  place ! 

What  has  been  said  so  far  applies  to  the  min- 
istry of  the  Covenant  of  Grace  under  both  dis- 
pensations. It  describes  a  glory  common  to 
Moses  and  Paul.  The  Apostle  ungrudgingly 
recognizes  that  the  Old  Testament  had  its 
peculiar  distinction.  To  be  a  prophet  or  priest 
of  the  God  of  Israel  conferred  greater  honor 
than  any  secular  prominence  in  the  pagan  his- 
tory of  the  race.  Even  the  ministration  written 
and  engraven  on  stones  came  with  glory.    This 


THE     MORE     EXCELLENT     MINISTRY  113 

excellence  of  the  Old  Covenant  found  a  symbolic 
expression  in  the  light  upon  the  face  of  Moses 
after  his  tarrying  with  God  upon  the  mount,  a 
light  so  intense  that  the  children  of  Israel  could 
not  steadfastly  look  upon  its  radiance.  Paul's/ 
purpose,  however,  is  not  to  emphasize  what  the 
two  dispensations  have  in  common,  but  that  in 
which  the  New  surpasses  the  Old.  Since  the  oppo- 
nents had  clothed  their  attack  upon  him  in  the 
invidious  form  of  a  comparison  with  the  Mosaic 
administration,  it  was  natural  for  him  to  take 
up  the  challenge  and  fight  out  the  battle  along 
the  same  line.  None  the  less  the  comparison,  as 
followed  up  by  Paul,  is  startling  in  its  exceed- 
ing boldness.  A  more  impressive  disclosure  of 
his  exalted  sense  of  office  is  scarcely  conceiv- 
able. In  order  to  feel  the  full  force  of  this  we 
ought  to  make  clear  to  ourselves  that  not  two 
single  persons  but  two  pairs  of  persons  are  set 
over  against  each  other.  On  the  one  side  stand 
God  and  Moses,  the  reflector  of  his  glory,  on  the^ 
other  Christ  and  Paul,  the  reflector  of  his  glory. 
It  would  be  interesting,  but  beside  our  present 
purpose,  to  consider  what  it  implies  as  to  the  na- 
ture and  rank  of  Christ,  that  the  Apostle  feels 
free  simply  to  put  Him  on  a  line  with  God  as  a 
fount  and  dispenser  of  glory  in  the  New  Cove- 
nant after  no  different  fashion  than  God  was  un- 
der the  Old  Covenant.  Without  pursuing  this 
further,  we  now  wish  to  make  the  point,  that  the 
comparison  lies  not  between  Moses  and  Christ, 
but  between  Moses  and  Paul.  Than  Moses  no 
greater  name  was  known  in  the  annals  of  Old 
Testament  redemption.     Prophet,  priest,  law- 


114  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

giver  in  one,  he  towers  high  above  all  the  others. 
And  to  Paul,  the  son  of  Israel,  all  this  wealth  of 
sacred  story  gathered  round  the  head  of  Moses 
must  have  been  a  thousand  times  more  impres- 
sive than  it  can  be  to  us.  What  an  overwhelm- 
ing sense  then  of  the  greatness  of  his  own  min- 
istry must  Paul  have  possessed,  when  he  dared 
conceive  the  thought  of  being  greater  than 
Moses !  "Verily  that  which  has  been  made  glori- 
ous has  been  made  not-glorious  in  this  respect 
by  reason  of  the  glory  that  surpasseth." 

The  Apostle,  however,  does  not  give  expres- 
sion to  this  lofty  consciousness  in  an  outburst 
of  unreasoning  enthusiasm.  He  carefully  speci- 
fies wherein  the  surpassing  excellence  of  his 
ministry  above  that  of  Moses  consists.  The  first 
point  relates  to  the  contrast  between  transitori- 
ness  and  eternity.  Putting  it  in  'terms  of 
the  figure,  Paul  affirms  that  the  glory  of  the 
Old  Covenant  had  to  pass  away,  whereas  that 
of  the  New  Covenant  must  remain.  When 
Moses  descended  from  the  mount  his  face  shone 
with  a  refulgence  of  the  divine  glory  near  which 
he  had  been  permitted  to  dwell  for  a  season. 
But  his  face  could  not  retain  this  brightness 
for  any  length  of  time.  It  soon  disappeared. 
Thus  what  Moses  stood  for  was  glorious  but 
lacked  permanence.  The  day  was  bound  to  come 
when  its  splendor  would  vanish.  On  the  other 
hand  the  New  Covenant  is  final  and  abiding. 
The  times  cannot  outgrow,  the  developments  of 
history  cannot  antiquate  it,  it  carries  within  it- 
self the  pledge  of  eternity.  But  not  only  did 
such  a  difference  actually  exist — both  Moses  and 


THE     MORE     EXCELLENT     MINISTRY  115 

Paul  were  aware  of  the  state  of  things  in  each 
case.  Moses  was  aware  of  it,  for  we  are  told  that 
he  put  the  veil  on  his  face  for  the  purpose  of  hid- 
ing the  disappearance  of  the  glory.  And  Paul 
was,  since  in  pointed  contrast  to  this  procedure, 
he  professes  to  minister  with  open  face :  "Not  as 
Moses,  who  put  a  veil  over  his  face."  It  was  fur- 
ther inevitable  that  in  Paul's  estimation  the 
speedy  abrogation  of  Moses'  work  detracted 
from  his  glory  as  a  servant  of  the  Covenant,  and 
that,  on  the  other  hand,  the  enduring  character 
of  his  own  work  added  greatly  to  the  honor 
wherewith  Paul  felt  it  clothed  him  and  the  satis- 
faction he  derived  from  it.  Time,  especially  time 
with  the  wasting  power  it  acquires  through  sin, 
is  the  arch-enemy  of  all  human  achievement.  It 
kills  the  root  of  joy  which  otherwise  belongs  to 
working  and  building.  All  things  which  the  suc- 
ceeding generations  of  mankind  have  wrought  in 
the  course  of  the  ages  succumb  to  its  attacks. 
The  tragic  sense  of  this  accompanies  the  race  at 
every  step  in  its  march  through  history.  It  is 
like  a  pall  cast  over  the  face  of  the  peoples.  In 
revealed  religion  through  the  grace  of  redemp- 
tion it  is  in  principle  removed,  yet  not  so  that 
under  the  Old  Covenant  the  dark  shadow  en- 
tirely disappears.  The  plaint  of  it  is  in  Moses' 
own  Psalm:  "Thou  turnest  man  to  destruction 
— Thou  carriest  them  away  as  with  a  flood." 
And  something  of  this  bitter  taste  of  transitori- 
ness  enters  even  into  the  Old  Testament  con- 
sciousness of  salvation.  Now  put  over  against 
this  the  triumphant  song  of  life  and  assurance 
of  immortality  that  fills  the  glorious,  spacious 


116  GRACE      AND      GLOR-X 

days  of  the  New  Covenant,  especially  where  first 
it  issues  from  the  womb  of  the  morning  bathed 
in  the  dew  of  imperishable  youth.  The  note  of 
futility  and  depression  has  disappeared,  and  in 
place  of  this  the  rapture  of  victory  over  death 
and  decay,  the  exultant  feeling  of  immersion  in 
the  atmosphere  of  eternity  prevail.  And  this 
particularly  communicated  itself  to  the  spirit 
in  which  the  Covenant-ministration  was  per- 
formed. The  joy  of  working  in  the  dawn  of  the 
world  to  come  quickens  the  pulse  of  all  New 
Testament  servants  of  Christ.  Paul  felt  that 
the  product  of  his  labors,  the  output  of  his  life, 
would  shine  with  unfading  splendor  in  the  pal- 
ace of  God.  Thus  also  the  honor  of  being  a  fel- 
low laborer  of  God  first  obtains  its  full  rich 
meaning.  It  is  the  prerogative  of  God,  the 
Eternal  One,  to  work  for  eternity.  As  the  King 
of  the  ages  He  discounts  and  surmounts  all  the 
intervening  forces  and  barriers  of  time.  He  who 
is  made  to  share  in  this  receives  the  highest  form 
which  the  divine  image  can  assume  in  its  repro- 
duction in  man.  Neither  things  present  nor 
things  to  come  can  conquer  him.  He  reigns  in 
life  with  God  through  Jesus  Christ,  his  Lord. 
In  the  second  place,  there  is  a  difference  op- 
erating to  the  advantage  of  Paul  between  the  two 
ministries  in  regard  to  the  measure  of  open- 
ness and  clearness  with  which  they  are  con- 
ducted. Moses  ministered  with  covered,  Paul  J 
ministers  with  open,  that  is  uncovered,  face. 
As  regards  Moses  this  was  that  the  children 
of  Israel  should  not  perceive  the  passing 
away  of  the  glory  underneath  the  veil.     Not 


THE     MORE     EXCELLENT     MINISTRY  117 

that  Moses  acted  as  a  deceiver  of  his  people. 
Paul  means  to  say,  that  in  receiving  the  glory, 
and  losing  it,  and  hiding  its  loss,  he  served  the 
symbolic  function  of  illustrating,  in  the  first 
place,  the  glory  of  the  Old  Covenant,  in  the^. 
second  place  its  transitoriness,  and  in  the 
third  place  the  ignorance  of  Israel  in  regard 
to  what  was  taking  place.  The  chief  point 
of  ignorance  of  the  people  related  to  the  eclipse 
and  abrogation  their  institutions  would  suffer. 
But  the  symbolism  permits  of  being  generalized, 
so  as  to  include  all  the  limitations  of  self-knowl- 
edge and  self-understanding  under  which  the 
Old  Covenant  labored.  As  a  matter  of  fact  Paul 
immediately  afterwards  extends  it  to  Israel's 
entire  reading  of  the  law,  that  is,  to  Israel's  self- 
interpretation  and  Scripture-interpretation  on  a 
large  scale.  Ignorance  as  to  the  end  would 
easily  produce  ignorance  or  imperfect  under- 
standing with  reference  to  the  whole  order  of 
things  under  which  the  people  were  living. 
Everything  temporal  and  provisional,  especially 
if  it  does  not  know  itself  as  such,  is  apt  to  wear 
a  veil.  It  often  lacks  the  faculty  of  discriminat- 
ing between  what  is  higher  and  lower  in  its 
composition.  Things  that  are  ends  and  things 
that  are  mere  means  to  an  end  are  not  always 
clearly  separated.  Every  preparatory  stage  in 
the  history  of  redemption  can  fully  understand 
itself  only  in  the  light  of  that  which  fulfills  it. 
The  veil  of  the  Old  Covenant  is  lifted  only  in^ 
Christ.  The  Christian  standpoint  alone  fur- 
nishes the  necessary  perspective  for  apprehend- 
ing its  place  and  function  in  the  organism  of 


118  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

the  whole.  So  it  came  about  that  the  Mosaic 
Covenant  moved  through  the  ages  a  mystery  to 
itself  and  to  its  servants.  According  to  Paul 
this  tragical  process  reached  its  climax  M^hen 
Israel  came  face  to  face  with  Him  who  alone 
could  interpret  Israel  to  itself.  It  is  not  for  us 
to  unravel  the  web  of  self -misinterpretation  and 
unbelief  wrought  by  the  Jews  on  the  ancient 
loom  previously  to  the  appearance  of  Christ. 
Paul  implies  that  both  causes  contributed  to  the 
sad  result.  There  was  an  element  of  original 
guilt  as  well  as  of  subsequent  hardening  in- 
volved. Their  minds  were  blinded.  The  veil  / 
was  on  the  reading  of  Moses,  but  the  veil  was 
also  on  their  hearts.  And  the  Apostle's  word 
still  holds  true:  the  veil  remains  until  the 
present  day.  It  can  be  taken  away  only  when 
Israel  shall  turn  to  the  Lord.  Then,  and  not 
until  then,  that  ghost  of  the  Old  Covenant  which 
now  accompanies  Israel  on  its  wandering 
through  the  ages,  will  vanish  from  its  side.  As 
a  double  gift  of  grace  it  will  then  receive  the 
treasures  of  Moses  and  those  of  Paul  from  the 
hand  of  Christ. 

It  is  in  sharp  contrast  to  all  this  that  Paul 
describes  his  own  mode  of  ministering  under  the 
New  Covenant.  He  serves  with  unveiled  face, 
and  in  this  one  figure  all  the  openness,  the  self-  ^ 
intelligence,  the  transparency  of  his  ministry 
find  expression.  The  proclamation  of  the  Word 
of  the  Gospel  has  left  behind  all  the  old  reserve 
and  restrictions  and  limitations  under  which 
Moses  and  his  successors  labored.  Its  minis- 
ters can  now  speak  fully  and  freely  and  plainly 


THE     MORE     EXCELLENT     MINISTRY  119 

the  whole  counsel  of  God.  Paul  glories  in  being 
able  to  do  this.  He  uses  great  boldness  of  speech. 
There  is  nothing  to  withhold,  nothing  to  con- 
ceal :  the  entire  plan  of  redemption  has  been  un- 
folded, the  mystery  hidden  through  the  ages  has 
been  revealed,  and  there  is  committed  to  every 
ambassador  of  Christ  an  absolute  message,  no 
longer  subject  to  change.  Not  the  delicate  pro- 
cedure of  the  diplomat,  who  hides  his  aim,  but 
the  stately  stepping  forward  of  the  herald  who 
renders  an  authoritative  pronouncement,  char- 
acterizes his  task  to  Paul's  own  mind.  He  dis- 
cards all  human  artifice  and  invention,  all  un- 
sincere  and  undignified  devices  evidently  em- 
ployed by  some  at  that  time,  as  they  are  still 
not  infrequently  at  the  present  time,  to  render 
the  Gospel  palatable  to  his  hearers.  He  scorns, 
where  principles  are  concerned,  all  compromise 
and  concession :  "Therefore,  seeing  we  have  this 
ministry,  even  as  we  obtained  mercy,  we  faint 
not,  but  we  have  renounced  the  hidden  things  of 
shame,  not  walking  in  craftiness,  nor  handling 
the  Word  of  God  deceitfully,  but  by  the  mani- 
festation of  the  truth  commending  ourselves  to 
every  man's  conscience  in  the  sight  of  God." 
There  is  a  straightforwardness,  a  simplicity  in 
preaching,  which  is  proportionate  to  the  preach- 
er's own  faith  in  the  absoluteness,  and  inherent 
truthfulness  of  his  message.  No  shallow  optim- 
ism about  the  adjustableness  of  Christianity  to 
ever  changing  conditions,  about  its  self -rejuve- 
nating power  after  apparent  decline,  can  pos- 
sibly make  up  for  a  lack  of  this  fundamental 
conviction.    Unless  we  are  convinced  with  Paul 


120  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

that  Christianity  has  a  definable  and  well-de- 
fined message  to  bring,  and  are  able  to  tell 
wherein  it  consists,  all  our  talk  about  its  vitality 
or  adaptability  will  neither  comfort  ourselves 
nor  deceive  others.  A  thing  is  not  immortal 
because  it  is  long-lived  and  dies  hard.  Only 
when  through  all  changes  of  time  it  preserves 
unaltered  its  essence  and  source  of  power,  can  it 
be  considered  worth  while  as  a  medicine  for  the 
sickness  of  the  world.  Something  that  needs  the 
constant  use  of  cosmetics  to  keep  up  the  appear- 
ance of  youth  is  a  caricature  of  the  Christianity 
of  the  New  Testament.  Its  case  is  worse  than  it 
imagines:  it  has  not  merely  passed  its  youth, 
but  is  in  danger  of  losing  its  very  life. 

In  the  next  place,  the  greater  distinction  of 
the  ministry  of  the  New  Covenant  springs  from 
this  that  it  is  in  the  closest  conceivable  manner 
bound  up  with  the  Person  and  work  of  the 
Savior.  It  is  a  Christ-dispensation  in  the  fullest 
sense  of  the  word.  What  is  possessed  by  the 
New  Covenant  is  not  the  glory  of  God  as  such, 
but  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Moses  had  a  great  vision  on  the  mountain,  but 
Paul  had  a  greater  one,  even  as  Moses  himself 
had  a  greater,  when  he  stood  with  Elias  on  the 
New  Testament  mount  of  transfiguration.  Paul 
beholds  the  glory  of  Christ  as  in  a  mirror,  or, 
according  to  another  rendering,  reflects  it  as  a 
mirror.  His  entire  task,  both  on  its  communi- 
cative and  on  its  receptive  side,  can  be  summed 
up  in  his  reflecting  back  the  Christ-glory,  caught 
by  himself  unto  others.  To  behold  Christ  and 
to  make  others  behold  Him  is  the  substance  of 


THE     MORE     EXCELLENT     MINISTRY  121 

his  ministry.  All  the  distinctive  elements  of 
Paul's  preaching  relate  to  Christ,  and  bear  upon 
their  face  his  image  and  superscription.  God 
is  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  The 
Spirit  is  the  Spirit  of  Christ.  In  the  procuring 
of  righteousness  Christ  is  the  one  efficient  cause. 
In  Christ  believers  were  chosen,  called,  justified, 
and  will  be  glorified.  To  be  converted  is  to  die 
with  Christ  and  to  rise  with  Him.  The  entire 
Christian  life,  root  and  stem  and  branch  and 
blossom,  is  one  continuous  fellowship  with 
Christ.  But  to  say  that  the  Gospel  is  full  of 
Christ  is  still  too  general  a  statement.  What 
the  Apostle  affirms  is  that  it  is  particularly  the 
Gospel  of  the  glory  of  Christ,  and  that,  there- 
fore, its  ministry  also  has  specifically  to  do  with 
this.  Now  this  is  not  a  mere  metaphorical  way 
of  speaking,  as  if  it  meant  no  more  than  that  in 
every  possible  manner  the  Gospel-preaching 
brings  out  and  promotes  the  honor  of  the  Savior. 
Paul  intends  it  in  a  far  more  literal  sense. 
The  glory  of  Christ  transmitted  by  his  Gospel 
is  an  objective  reality.  It  is  that  which  effects 
the  Savior's  exalted  state  since  the  resurrection. 
While  including  the  radiance  of  his  external  ap- 
pearance, it  is  by  no  means  confined  to  this. 
Paul  reckons  among  this  glory  the  whole  equip-  / 
ment  of  grace  and  power  and  beauty,  all  the 
supernatural  potencies  and  forces  stored  up  in 
the  risen  Lord.  It  consists  of  energy  no  less 
than  of  splendor.  Taken  in  this  comprehensive, 
realistic  sense,  it  is  equivalent  to  the  content  of 
the  Gospel,  and  determines  the  nature  of  its 
ministry.     The  rendering,  "beholding  as  in  a 


122  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

mirror"  admirably  fits  into  this  representation. 
As  a  mirror  is  not  an  end  in  itself,  but  exists  for 
the  sake  of  what  is  seen  through  it,  so  the  Gos-  / 
pel  serves  no  other  purpose  than  to  bring  men 
face  to  face  with  the  glory  of  Christ.  It  is 
naught  else  but  a  tale  of  Christ,  a  Christ  in 
words,  the  exact  counterpart  of  Christ's  Person 
and  work  in  their  glorious  state.  Because  of 
the  consciousness  of  this  Paul  felt  himself 
greater  than  Moses,  for  the  partial  light  that 
shone  on  the  latter's  face  has  now  become 
omnipresent  and  fills  the  New  Covenant. 
Under  the  Old  Dispensation  the  servants  of  God 
saw  only  from  afar  the  brightness  of  the  Mes- 
siah's rising.  Now  He  is  visible  from  nearby, 
the  One  filling  all  in  all,  occupying  the  entire 
field  of  vision.  The  humblest  of  preachers  sur- 
passes in  this  respect  the  greatest  of  Old  Testa- 
ment evangelists.  He  carries  a  Gospel  all-frag- 
rant and  all-radiant  with  Christ. 

In  the  fourth  place  the  excellence  of  the  min- 
istry of  the  New  Covenant  is  seen  in  this — that 
it  is  a  ministry  of  abundant  forgiveness  and 
righteousness.  This  aspect  of  it  also  is  inti- 
mately connected  with  the  glory  of  the  Lord, 
although  it  requires  a  somewhat  closer  inspec- 
tion to  perceive  this.  It  should  be  remembered 
that  the  glory  possessed  by  Christ  in  heaven  is, 
to  Paul,  the  emphatic,  never-silent  declaration 
of  his  absolute  righteousness  acquired  during 
the  state  of  humiliation.  It  sprang  from  his 
obedience  and  suffering  and  self-sacrifice  in  our 
stead.  It  is  righteousness  translated  into  the 
language  of  effect,  the  crown  set  upon  his  work 


THE     MORE     EXCELLENT     MINISTRY  123 

of  satisfaction.  Consequently  the  servant  of  the 
New  Covenant  can  attach  his  ministry  of  par- 
don and  peace  to  the  glory  of  Christ.  Hence 
Paul  in  working  out  the  comparison  between 
Moses  and  himself  with  special  reference  to  the 
question  of  righteousness  reduces  the  difference 
to  terms  of  glory :  "For  if  the  ministry  of  con- 
demnation is  glory,  much  rather  does  the  min- 
istry of  righteousness  exceed  in  glory."  In  a 
broad  sense  the  Old  Testament  was  the  economy 
of  conviction  of  sin.  The  law  revealed  the  moral 
helplessness  of  man,  placed  him  under  a  curse, 
worked  death.  There  was,  of  course.  Gospel  un- 
der and  in  the  Old  Covenant,  but  it  was  for  its 
expression  largely  dependent  on  the  silent  sym- 
bolic language  of  altar  and  sacrifice  and  lustra- 
tion. Under  it  the  glory  which  speaks  of  righte- 
ousness was  in  hiding.  In  the  New  Covenant  all 
this  has  been  changed.  The  veil  has  been  rent, 
and  through  it  an  unobstructed  view  is  obtained 
of  the  glory  of  God  on  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ. 
And  with  this  vision  comes  the  assurance  of 
atonement,  satisfaction,  access  to  God,  peace  of 
conscience,  liberty,  eternal  life.  For  Paul  the 
commission  to  proclaim  these  things  constitutes 
no  small  part  of  the  excellence  of  his  task.  As 
Jesus  delighted  in  announcing  release  to  the  cap- 
tives, in  setting  at  liberty  them  that  were 
bruised,  in  proclaiming  the  acceptable  year  of 
Jehovah,  so  Paul,  even  more  because  of  the  ac- 
complishment of  the  redemptive  work,  rejoiced 
in  the  ministry  of  reconciliation.  Beautiful  to 
him  upon  the  mountains  were  the  feet  of  them 
that  bring  good  tidings,  that  publish  peace. 


/ 


124  GRACE      AND       GLORY 

The  jfifth  and  principal  reason  why  the  ser- 
vice of  the  New  Covenant  excels  in  honor,  Paul 
finds  in  this:  that  the  Christ-glory  is  a  living 
and  self-communicating  power,  transforming 
both  those  who  mediate  it  and  those  who  receive 
it  from  glory  to  glory  into  the  likeness  of  the 
Lord.  Paul  here  again  has  in  mind  the  differ- 
ence between  Moses  and  himself.  Moses'  own 
condition  and  appearance  were  only  externally 
and  temporarily  affected  by  the  vision  on  the 
mount.  After  a  while  his  face  became  as  before. 
And  what  he  was  unable  to  retain  for  himself 
he  was  unable  to  communicate  unto  others.  Over 
against  this  the  Apostle  places  the  two  facts, 
first  that  the  servants  of  the  New  Covenant  are 
internally  and  permanently  transformed  by  be- 
holding the  image  of  the  Lord,  and  second  that 
they  effect  a  similar  transformation  in  others 
to  whom  through  their  ministry  the  knowledge 
of  the  glorified  Savior  comes.  In  its  first  part 
this  representation  was  doubtless  connected 
with  the  Apostle's  personal  experience.  There 
had  been  a  point  in  his  life  at  which  the  percep- 
tion of  the  glorified  Lord  had  been  for  him  at- 
tended with  the  most  marvelous  change  it  is 
possible  to  undergo.  The  glory  that  shone 
around  him  on  the  road  to  Damascus  had  in  one 
moment,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  swept  away 
all  his  old  beliefs  and  ideals,  his  sinful  passion 
and  pride,  and  made  of  him  a  new  creature,  to 
whom  the  past  things  were  like  the  faint  mem- 
ory of  some  distant  phase  of  existence.  And 
what  had  happened  there,  Paul  had  afterwards 
seen  repeating  itself  thousands  of  times,  less 


THE     MORE     EXCELLENT     MINISTRY  125 

conspicuously,  to  be  sure,  but  not  on  that  ac- 
count less  truly,  less  miraculously.  To  express 
this  aspect  of  his  ministry  he  employs  the  for- 
mula, that  it  is  a  ministry  of  the  Spirit,  that  is 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  whereas  that  of  Moses  was 
one  of  the  letter.  The  Spirit  stands  for  the  liv- 
ing, energizing,  creative  grace  of  God,  the  letter 
for  the  inability  of  the  law  as  such  to  translate 
itself  into  action.  Now  in  saying  that  the  min- 
istry of  the  New  Covenant  is  a  ministry  of  the 
glory  of  Christ  and  that  it  is  a  ministry  of  the 
Spirit  Paul  is  not  really  affirming  two  different 
things  but  one  and  the  same  fact.  The  glory  and 
the  Spirit  to  him  are  identical.  As  we  have  seen 
the  glory  means  the  equipment,  with  superna- 
tural power  and  splendor,  of  the  exalted  Christ. 
And  this  equipment,  described  from  the  point  of 
view  of  its  energizing  source,  consists  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  It  was  at  the  resurrection  that  the  Spirit 
in  this  high,  unique  sense  was  received  by  Him. 
There  the  Spirit  transformed  the  Lord's  human 
nature  and  made  it  glorious  beyond  conception. 
Besides  this,  the  Spirit  is  with  Christ  in  continu- 
ance as  the  indwelling  principle,  the  element,  as 
it  were,  in  which  the  glorified  life  of  the  Savior 
is  lived.  We  need  not  wonder,  then,  that  a  little 
later  the  Apostle  gives  almost  paradoxical  ex- 
pression to  this  truth  by  declaring,  "The  Lord  is 
the  Spirit,"  and  that  we  are  transformed  from 
"the  Lord,  the  Spirit."  This  language  is  not,  of 
course,  intended  to  efface  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  Second  and  the  Third  Persons  of  the 
Trinity,  but  simply  serves  to  bring  out  the  prac- 
tical inseparableness  of  the  exalted  Christ  and 


y 


126  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  work  of  salvation.  So 
we  begin  to  understand  at  least  a  little  of  the 
mystery,  how  the  glory  of  Christ  can  communi- 
cate itself  to  and  reproduce  itself  in  the  believer 
and  transform  him.  As  Spirit-glory  it  cannot 
fail  to  do  this,  for  it  is  of  the  nature  of  the  Spirit 
so  to  act.  Hence  also  we  read  elsewhere  that 
Christ  "became  a  quickening  Spirit."  The  main 
point  to  be  observed,  however,  is  how  all  this 
adds  to  the  high  conception  held  by  Paul  about 
the  honor  of  his  ministry  as  compared  with  that 
of  Moses.  The  minister  of  the  law,  the  letter,  can 
never  taste  that  sweetest  joy  of  seeing  the  mes- 
sage he  brings  incarnate  and  reincarnate  itself 
in  the  lives  of  others.  The  minister  of  the  New 
Covenant  does  taste  of  this  joy :  he  writes  with 
the  Spirit  of  the  living  God  in  tables  that  are 
hearts  of  flesh.  This  means  more  than  what  we 
sometimes  speak  of  and  feel  as  pleasure  in  the 
consciousness  of  power  set  free  or  good  accom- 
plished. Paul  undoubtedly  knew  this  also,  but 
to  confine  what  he  here  describes  to  that  would 
rob  it  of  its  most  distinctive  quality.  Paul  had 
the  sensation  of  coming  through  his  ministry 
into  the  closest  touch  with  the  forthputting  of 
the  saving  energy  of  God  Himself.  He  was 
aware  that  to  his  preaching  of  the  Gospel  there 
belonged  an  invisible  background,  that  at  every 
step  his  presentation  of  the  truth  was  accom- 
panied by  a  ministry  from  heaven  conducted  by 
the  Christ  of  glory.  His  work  was  for  him  im- 
bued with  divine  power,  the  life-blood  of  the 
supernatural  pulsed  through  it.  His  service,  at 
each  point  where  it  touched  men,  marked  the 


THE     MORE     EXCELLENT     MINISTRY  127 

line  and  opened  channels  for  the  introduction  of 
divine  creative  forces  into  human  souls.  So  vivid 
was  this  consciousness  of  involvement  in  the 
supernatural,  that  nothing  short  of  a  compari- 
son of  God's  word  through  him  with  the  divine 
word  at  the  first  creation  could  adequately  ex- 
press it  to  Paul's  mind:  "God  who  said,  Let 
light  shine  out  of  darkness,  has  shined  into  our 
hearts  for  the  purpose  of  our  imparting  the 
light  of  the  knowledge  of  his  glory  in  the  face 
of  Jesus  Christ."  Nor  was  this  close  participa- 
tion with  God  in  a  transforming  spiritual  pro- 
cess something  glorious  merely  in  itself.  Paul 
also  took  into  account  its  comprehensive  effect. 
When  the  Apostle  says  "we  all  are  transformed" 
it  is  evident  that  the  statement  is  not  limited  to 
the  Apostles  or  preachers  of  the  Gospel,  but  in- 
cludes, so  far  at  least  as  the  passive  experience 
is  concerned,  all  believers.  To  the  joyous  con- 
sciousness of  exerting  extraordinary  power 
there  was  added  the  delight  of  witnessing  ex- 
traordinary results.  There  is  a  note  of  genuine 
Christian  universalism  in  this.  It  was  a 
reason  for  profound  satisfaction  to  Paul 
that  he  needed  not  stand  in  the  midst 
of  the  congregation  of  God  as  another 
Moses,  partaking  of  a  light  from  God  in  which 
the  others  could  not  share,  solitary  in  his  splen- 
dor, but  that  the  larger  share  of  what  he  af- 
firmed of  himself  had  through  him  become  the 
possession  of  the  simplest  believer,  a  transfig- 
uration of  spirit  like  his  own  by  the  beholding 
of  the  Lord.  Refracted  from  numberless  mir- 
rors the  light  multiplied  and  intensified  itself 


128  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

for  each  on  whom  it  fell.  Nevertheless  even  so 
a  measure  of  incommunicable  distinction  re- 
mained. Since  the  reproduction  into  the  like- 
ness of  Christ  is  dependent  on  and  proportion- 
ate to  the  vision  of  the  Savior,  and  since  this 
vision  from  the  nature  of  the  case  is  more  con- 
stantly present  to  the  minister  of  the  Gospel 
than  to  the  common  believer,  it  follows  that  in 
the  former  an  altogether  unique  result  may  be 
expected.  So  it  was  undoubtedly  with  Paul.  He 
had  no  need  of  testing  the  principle  in  others; 
a  more  direct  and  convincing  evidence  lay  in  its 
effect  upon  himself.  He  was  aware  of  a  renewal 
of  the  inner  man,  progressing  from  day  to  day, 
and  in  which  there  was  observable  this  law  of 
increase,  that  the  more  he  did  to  make  Christ 
known,  the  deeper  the  lineaments  of  the  char- 
acter of  Christ  were  impressed  upon  his  soul. 
Even  the  hardships  befalling  his  flesh  in  the 
service  of  the  Lord  were  contributory  to  this: 
"We  are  always  bearing  about  in  the  body  the 
dying  of  Jesus,  that  the  life  also  of  Jesus  may 
be  manifested  in  our  mortal  flesh."  And :  "Our 
light  affliction,  which  is  for  the  moment,  works 
for  us  more  exceedingly  an  eternal  weight  of 
glory."  "Therefore  we  faint  not,  though  our 
outward  man  decay,  yet  the  inner  man  is  re- 
newed day  by  day."  Thus  the  Apostle's  minis- 
try, while  exercised  upon  others,  became  unto 
him  an  unintermittent  ministry  to  his  own  soul, 
ever  increasingly  assimilating  him  to  the  glory 
of  Christ. 

Such  was  Paul's  conception  of  the  ministry 
of  the  New  Covenant.    It  bears  upon  its  face 


THE     MORE     EXCELLENT     MINISTRY  129 

the  marks  of  the  historical  situation  in  which 
he  was  called  upon  to  present  it.  None  the  less 
it  has  abiding  validity,  for  it  is  drawn  from  the 
nature  of  the  Gospel  itself,  and  the  Gospel  is 
the  Gospel  of  Him  who  remains  the  same  yes- 
terday and  today  and  forever.  Even  of  the  er- 
rors over  against  which  Paul  placed  these  glori- 
ous views  it  is  in  a  certain  sense  true  that  they 
are  not  of  one  age  but  of  all  ages;  they  lead  a 
life  of  pseudo-immortality  among  men.  In  the 
Judaistic  controversy  which  shook  the  early 
church,  forces  and  tendencies  were  at  work 
deeply  rooted  in  the  sinful  human  heart.  In 
modernized  apparel  they  confront  us  still  to  the 
present  day.  There  are  still  abroad  forms  of  a 
Christless  Gospel.  There  prevails  still  a  subtle 
form  of  legalism  which  would  rob  the  Savior  of 
his  crown  of  glory,  earned  by  the  cross,  and  ^ 
would  make  of  Him  a  second  Moses,  offering  us  ^ 
the  stones  of  the  law  instead  of  the  life-bread 
of  the  Gospel.  And,  oh  the  pity  and  shame  of  it, 
the  Jesus  that  is  being  preached  but  too  often 
is  a  Christ  after  the  flesh,  a  religious  genius,  the 
product  of  evolution,  powerless  to  save !  Let  us 
pray  that  it  may  be  given  to  the  Church  to  re- 
pudiate and  cast  out  this  error  with  the  reso- 
luteness of  Paul.  There  is  need  for  her  minis- 
ters of  placing  themselves  ever  afresh  in  the 
light  of  the  great  Apostolic  consciousness  re- 
vealed in  our  text.  They  should  learn  once  more 
to  bear  their  message  out  of  the  fulness  of  con- 
viction that  it  is  an  unchangeable  message,  re- 
liable as  the  veracity  of  God  Himself.  Grant 
God  that  it  may  become  on  the  lips  of  his  ser- 


130  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

vants  more  truly  from  age  to  age  a  Gospel  from 
which  the  name  of  Christ  crowds  out  every 
other  human  name,  good  tidings  of  atonement 
and  righteousness  and  supernatural  renewal ;  to 
preacher  and  people  alike,  what  it  was  to  Paul 
and  his  converts,  a  mirror  of  vision  and  trans- 
figuration after  the  image  of  the  Lord. 


VI.     Heavenly-Mindedness 


The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
XI,  9,  10:  "By  faith  he  became  a 
sojourner  in  the  land  of  promise, 
as  in  a  land  not  his  own,  dwelling 
in  tents,  with  Isaac  and  Jacob,  the 
heirs  with  him  of  the  same  prom- 
ise; for  he  looked  for  the  city 
which  has  the  foundations,  whose 
builder  and  maker  is  God" 


HEAVENLY-MINDEDNESS  133 


'PHE  chapter  from  which  our  text  is  taken  is 
pre-eminently  the  chapter  on  faith.  It  illus- 
trates the  nature,  power  and  effects  of  this 
grace  in  a  series  of  examples  from  sacred  his- 
tory. In  the  context  the  prophecy  of  Habakkuk 
is  quoted:  "The  righteous  shall  live  by  faith." 
We  remember  that  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans 
and  Galatians  also  the  same  prophecy  appears 
with  prominence.  Abraham  likewise  there  fig- 
ures as  the  great  example  of  faith.  In  conse- 
quence one  might  easily  be  led  to  think  that  the 
development  of  the  idea  of  faith  in  these  Epis- 
tles and  in  our  chapter  moves  along  identical 
lines.  This  would  be  only  partially  correct. 
Although  the  two  types  of  teaching  are  in  per- 
fect accord,  and  touch  each  other  at  certain 
points,  yet  the  angle  of  vision  is  not  the  same. 
In  Romans  and  Galatians  faith  is  in  the  main 
trust  in  the  grace  of  God,  the  instrument  of  jus- 
tification, the  channel  through  which  the  vital 
influences  flowing  from  Christ  are  received  by 
the  believer.  Here  in  Hebrews  the  conception 
is  wider;  faith  is  "the  proving  of  things  not 
seen,  the  assurance  of  things  hoped  for."  It  is 
the  organ  for  apprehension  of  unseen  and  future 
realities,  giving  access  to  and  contact  with  an- 
other world.  It  is  the  hand  stretched  out 
through  the  vast  distances  of  space  and  time, 
whereby  the  Christian  draws  to  himself  the 
things  far  beyond,  so  that  they  become  actual  to 
him.    The  earlier  Epistles  are  not  unfamiliar 


134  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

with  this  aspect  of  faith.  Paul  in  II  Corinthi- 
ans declares  that  for  the  present  the  Christian 
walks  through  a  land  of  faith  and  not  of  sight. 
And  on  the  other  hand  this  chapter  is  not  un- 
familiar with  the  justifying  function  of  faith, 
for  we  are  told  of  Noah,  that  he  became  heir  of 
the  righteousness  which  is  according  to  faith. 
Nevertheless,  taking  the  two  representations  as 
a  whole,  the  distinctness  of  the  point  of  view  in 
each  should  not  be  neglected.  It  can  be  best 
appreciated  by  observing  that,  while  in  these 
other  writings  Christ  is  the  object  of  faith,  the 
One  towards  whom  the  sinner's  trust  is  directed, 
here  the  Savior  is  described  as  Himself  exercis- 
ing faith,  in  fact  as  the  one  perfect,  ideal  be- 
liever. The  writer  exhorts  his  readers:  "Let 
us  run  with  patience  the  race  that  is  set  before 
us,  looking  unto  Jesus  the  leader  and  perfecter 
of  our  faith."  Faith  in  that  other  sense  of  spe- 
cific trust,  through  which  a  guilty  sinner  be- 
comes just  in  the  sight  of  God,  our  Lord  could 
not  exercise,  because  He  was  sinless.  But  the 
faith  that  is  an  assurance  of  things  hoped  for 
and  a  proving  of  things  not  seen  had  a  large 
place  in  his  experience.  By  very  reason  of  the 
contrast  between  the  higher  world  to  which  He 
belonged  and  this  dark  lower  world  of  suffering 
and  death  to  which  He  had  surrendered  Him- 
self it  could  not  be  otherwise  than  that  faith,  as 
a  projection  of  his  soul  into  the  unseen  and 
future,  should  have  been  the  fundamental  habit 
of  the  earthly  life  of  his  human  nature,  and 
should  have  developed  in  Him  a  degree  of  in- 
tensity not  attained  elsewhere.    But,  although, 


HEAVENLY-MINDEDNESS  135 

for  the  reason  stated,  in  the  unique  case  of  Jesus 
the  two  types  of  faith  did  not  go  together,  they 
by  no  means  exclude  each  other  in  the  mind  of 
the  Christian.  For,  after  all,  justifying  faith  is 
but  a  special  application  in  one  particular  direc- 
tion of  the  frame  of  mind  here  described. 
Among  all  the  realities  of  the  invisible  world, 
mediated  to  us  by  the  disclosures  and  promises 
of  God,  and  to  which  our  faith  responds,  there 
is  none  that  more  strongly  calls  into  action  this 
faculty  for  grasping  the  unseen  than  the  divine 
pronouncement  through  the  Gospel,  that,  though 
sinners,  we  are  righteous  in  the  judgment  of 
God.  That  is  not  only  the  invisible,  it  seems  the 
impossible ;  it  is  the  paradox  of  all  paradoxes ;  it 
requires  a  unique  energy  of  believing;  it  is  the 
supreme  victory  of  faith  over  the  apparent 
reality  of  things ;  it  credits  God  with  calling  the 
things  that  are  not  as  though  they  were ;  it  pene- 
trates more  deeply  into  the  deity  of  God  than 
any  other  act  of  faith. 

What  we  read  in  this  chapter  about  the  vari- 
ous activities  and  acts  of  faith  in  the  lives  of 
the  Old  Testament  saints  might  perhaps  at  first 
create  the  impression,  that  the  word  faith  is 
used  in  a  looser  sense,  and  that  many  things  are 
attributed  to  it  not  strictly  belonging  there  on 
the  author's  own  definition.  One  might  be  in- 
clined in  more  precise  language  to  classify  them 
with  other  Christian  graces.  There  is  certainly 
large  variety  of  costume  in  the  procession  that 
is  made  to  pass  before  our  eyes.  The  under- 
standing that  the  worlds  were  framed  out  of 
nothing,  the  ability  to  offer  God  an  acceptable 


136  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

sacrifice,  the  experience  of  translation  unto  God, 
the  preparing  of  the  ark,  the  responsiveness  to 
the  call  to  leave  one's  country,  the  pov^er  to  con- 
ceive seed  v^hen  past  age,  the  vdllingness  to 
sacrifice  an  only  son,  Joseph's  making  mention 
beforehand  of  the  deliverance  from  Egypt,  and 
his  giving  commandment  concerning  his  bones, 
the  hiding  of  the  child  Moses,  the  choice  by 
Moses,  v^hen  grown  up,  of  the  reproach  of  God's 
people  in  preference  to  the  treasures  of  Egypt, 
all  this  and  more  is  represented  as  belonging  to 
the  one  rubric  of  faith.  But  let  us  not  misunder- 
stand the  writer.  When  he  affirms  that  by  faith 
all  these  things  were  suffered  and  done,  his  idea 
is  not  that  what  is  enumerated  was  in  each  case 
the  direct  expression  of  faith.  What  he  means 
is  that  in  the  last  analysis  faith  alone  made  pos- 
sible every  one  of  the  acts  described,  that  as  an 
underlying  frame  of  mind  it  enabled  all  these 
other  graces  to  function,  and  to  produce  the  rich 
fruitage  here  set  forth.  The  obedience,  the  self- 
sacrifice,  the  patience,  the  fortitude,  of  all  these 
the  exercise  in  the  profound  Christian  sense 
would  have  been  impossible,  if  the  saints  had 
not  had  through  faith  their  eye  firmly  fixed  on 
the  unseen  and  promised  world.  Whether  the 
call  was  to  believe  or  to  follow,  to  do  or  to  bear, 
the  obedience  to  it  sprang  not  from  any  earth- 
fed  sources  but  from  the  infinite  reservoir  of 
strength  stored  up  in  the  mountain-land  above. 
If  Moses  endured  it  was  not  due  to  the  power 
of  resistance  in  his  human  frame,  but  because 
the  weakness  in  him  was  compensated  by  the 
vision  of  Him  who  is  invisible.     If  Abraham, 


HEAVENLY-MINDEDNESS  137 

who  had  gladly  received  the  promises,  offered  up 
his  only-begotten  son,  it  was  not  because  in 
heroic  resignation  he  steeled  himself  to  obedi- 
ence, but  because  through  faith  he  saw  God  as 
greater  and  stronger  than  the  most  inexorable 
physical  law  of  nature :  "For  he  accounted  that 
God  is  able  to  raise  up  even  from  the  dead." 
And  so  in  all  the  other  instances.  Through  faith 
the  powers  of  the  higher  world  were  placed  at 
the  disposal  of  those  whom  this  world  threat- 
ened to  overwhelm,  and  so  the  miracle  resulted 
that  from  weakness  they  were  made  strong.  No 
mistake  could  be  greater  than  to  naturalize  the 
contents  of  this  chapter,  and  to  conceive  of  the 
thing  portrayed  as  some  instinct  of  idealism, 
some  sort  of  sixth  sense  for  what  lies  above  the 
common  plane  of  life,  as  people  speak  of  men  of 
vision,  who  see  farther  than  the  mass.  The 
entire  description  rests  on  the  basis  of  super- 
naturalism;  these  are  annals  of  grace,  mag- 
nalia  Christi.  Even  the  most  illustrious  names 
in  the  history  of  worldly  achievement  are  not, 
as  such,  entitled  to  a  place  among  them. 
This  is  the  goodly  company  of  patriarchs  and 
prophets  and  saints,  who  endured  the  reproach 
of  Christ,  of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy, 
who  form  the  line  of  succession  through  which 
the  promises  passed,  who  now  compose  the  cloud 
of  witnesses  that  encompass  our  mortal  strife, 
men  of  whom  God  is  not  ashamed  to  be  called 
their  God,  vnth  whom  the  Savior  Himself  is  as- 
sociated as  the  leader  and  finisher  of  the  same 
faith. 

In  our  text,  however,  we  meet  faith  in  its 


138  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

more  simple  and  direct  mode  of  operation.  It 
appears  as  dealing  with  the  unseen  and  future. 
From  the  life  of  the  patriarchs  the  more  mili- 
tant, strenuous  features  are  absent.  In  their 
lives  it  is  allowed  as  in  a  region  of  seclusion  and 
quietness  to  unfold  before  our  eyes  its  simple 
beauty.  Faith  is  here  but  another  name  for 
other-worldliness  or  heavenly-mindedness. 
Herein  lies  the  reason  why  the  writer  dwells 
with  such  evident  delight  upon  this  particular 
part  of  the  Old  Testament  narrative.  The  other 
figures  he  merely  sketches,  and  with  a  rapid 
skillful  stroke  of  the  brush  puts  in  the  high 
lights  of  their  lives  where  the  glory  of  faith 
illumined  them.  But  the  figure  of  Abraham  he 
paints  with  the  lingering,  caressing  hand  of 
love,  so  that  something  of  the  serenity  and 
peacefulness  of  the  original  patriarchal  story  is 
reproduced  in  the  picture:  "By  faith  he  be- 
came a  sojourner  in  the  land  of  promise,  as  in  a 
land  not  his  own,  dwelling  in  tents  with  Isaac 
and  Jacob,  the  heirs  with  him  of  the  same  prom- 
ise, for  he  looked  for  the  city  which  has  the 
foundations,  whose  builder  and  maker  is  God." 
The  charm  spread  over  this  part  of  the  subject 
to  the  author's  vision  also  appears  in  this,  that, 
after  having  already  dismissed  it  and  passed  on 
to  the  portrayal  of  Abraham's  faith  in  another 
form,  as  connected  with  the  seed  of  the  promise, 
he  involuntarily  returns  to  cast  one  more  loving 
glance  at  it:  "They  died  in  faith,  not  having 
received  the  promises,  but  seen  them  and  greeted 
them  from  afar,  and  having  confessed  that  they 
were  strangers  and  pilgrims  on  the  earth.    For 


HEAVENLY -MINDEDNESS  139 

they  that  say  such  things  make  it  manifest  that 
they  are  seeking  after  a  country  of  their  own. 
And  if  indeed  they  had  been  mindful  of  the  coun- 
try from  which  they  went  out,  they  would  have 
had  opportunity  to  return.  But  now  they  de- 
sire a  better  country,  that  is  a  heavenly ;  where- 
fore God  is  not  ashamed  to  be  called  their  God: 
for  He  hath  prepared  them  a  city." 

The  other-worldliness  of  the  patriarchs 
showed  itself  in  this,  that  they  confessed  to  be 
strangers  and  pilgrims  on  the  earth.  It  found 
its  visible  expression  in  their  dwelling  in  tents. 
Not  strangers  and  pilgrims  outside  of  Canaan, 
but  strangers  and  pilgrims  in  the  earth.  The 
writer  places  all  the  em.phasis  on  this,  that  they 
pursued  their  tent-life  in  the  very  land  of  prom- 
ise, which  was  their  own,  as  in  a  land  not  their 
own.  Only  in  this  way  is  a  clear  connection  be- 
tween the  staying  in  tents  and  the  looking  for- 
ward to  heaven  obtained.  For  otherwise  the 
tents  might  have  signified  merely  that  they  con- 
sidered themselves  not  at  home  when  away  from 
the  holy  land.  If  even  in  Canaan  they  carried 
within  themselves  the  consciousness  of  pilgrim- 
age then  it  becomes  strikingly  evident  that  it 
was  a  question  of  fundamental,  comprehensive 
choice  between  earth  and  heaven.  The  adher- 
ence to  the  tent-life  in  the  sight  and  amidst  the 
scenes  of  the  promised  land  fixes  the  aspiration 
of  the  patriarchs  as  aiming  at  the  highest  con- 
ceivable heavenly  goal.  It  has  in  it  somewhat 
of  the  scorn  of  the  relative  and  of  compromise. 
He  who  knows  that  for  him  a  palace  is  in  build- 
ing does  not  dally  with  desires  for  improvement 


140  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

on  a  lower  scale.  Contentment  with  the  lowest 
becomes  in  such  a  case  profession  of  the  high- 
est, a  badge  of  spiritual  aristocracy  with  its 
proud  insistence  upon  the  ideal.  Only  the  pre- 
destined inhabitants  of  the  eternal  city  know 
how  to  conduct  themselves  in  a  simple  tent  as 
kings  and  princes  of  God. 

As  to  its  negative  side,  the  feeling  of  strange- 
ness on  earth,  even  in  Canaan,  the  writer  could 
base  his  representation  on  the  statement  of 
Abraham  to  the  sons  of  Heth :  "I  am  a  stranger 
and  a  sojourner  with  you,"  and  on  the  words  of 
the  aged  Jacob  to  Pharaoh:  "The  days  of  the 
years  of  my  pilgrimage  are  an  hundred  and 
thirty  years :  few  and  evil  have  the  days  of  the 
years  of  my  life  been,  and  have  not  attained  unto 
the  days  of  the  years  of  the  life  of  my  fathers 
in  the  days  of  their  pilgrimage."  As  to  the  posi- 
tive side,  the  desire  for  a  heavenly  state,  there 
is  no  such  explicit  testimony  in  the  narrative  of 
Genesis.  None  the  less  the  author  was  fully 
justified  in  affirming  this  also.  It  is  contained 
by  implication  in  the  other.  The  refusal  to 
build  an  abiding  habitation  in  a  certain  place 
must  be  due  to  the  recognition  that  one's  true, 
permanent  abode  is  elsewhere.  The  not-feeling- 
at-home  in  one  country  has  for  its  inevitable 
counterpart  homesickness  for  another.  The 
writer  plainly  ascribes  this  to  the  patriarchs, 
and  in  doing  so  also  ascribes  to  them  a  degree 
of  acquaintance  with  the  idea  of  a  heavenly  life. 
His  meaning  is  not  that,  unknown  to  themselves, 
they  symbolized  through  their  mode  of  living 
the  principle  of  destination  for  heaven.    On  the 


HEAVENLY -MINDEDNESS  141 

contrary,  we  are  expressly  told  that  they  con- 
fessed, that  they  made  it  manifest,  that  they 
looked  for,  that  they  desired.  There  existed 
with  them  an  intelligent  and  outspoken  appre- 
hension of  the  celestial  world.  Let  us  not  say 
that  such  an  interpretation  of  their  minds  is 
unhistorical,  because  they  could  not  in  that  age 
have  possessed  a  clear  knowledge  of  the  world 
to  come.  Rather,  in  reading  this  chapter  on 
faith  let  us  have  faith,  a  large,  generous  faith 
in  the  uniqueness  and  spiritual  distinction  of 
the  patriarchs  as  confessors,  perhaps  in  ad- 
vance of  their  time,  of  the  heaven-centered  life 
of  the  people  of  God.  In  other  respects  also 
Scripture  represents  the  patriarchal  period  as 
lifted  above  the  average  level  of  the  surround- 
ing ages,  even  within  the  sphere  of  Special  Reve- 
lation. Paul  tells  us  that  in  the  matter  of  grace 
and  freedom  from  the  law  Abraham  lived  on  a 
plane  and  in  an  atmosphere  much  higher  than 
that  of  subsequent  generations.  Anachronisms 
these  things  are,  if  you  will,  but  anachronisms 
of  God,  who  does  not  let  Himself  be  bound  by 
time,  but,  seeing  the  end  from  the  beginning, 
reserves  the  right  to  divide  the  flood  of  history, 
and  to  place  on  conspicuous  islands  at  succes- 
sive points  great  luminaries  of  his  truth  and 
grace  shining  far  out  into  the  future.  The  patri- 
archs had  their  vision  of  the  heavenly  country, 
a  vision  in  the  light  of  which  the  excellence  or 
desirableness  of  every  earthly  home  and  country 
paled.  Acquaintance  with  a  fairer  Canaan  had 
stolen  from  their  hearts  the  love  of  the  land  that 
lay  spread  around  like  a  garden  of  paradise. 


142  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

Of  course,  it  does  not  necessarily  follow  from 
this  that  the  author  credits  the  patriarchs  with 
a  detailed,  concrete  knowledge  of  the  heavenly 
world.  In  point  of  heavenly-mindedness  he 
holds  them  up  as  models  to  be  imitated.  In  point 
of  information  about  the  content  of  the  celestial 
life  he  places  the  readers  far  above  the  reach  of 
the  Old  Testament  at  its  highest.  To  the  saints 
of  the  New  Covenant  life  and  immortality  and 
all  the  powers  of  the  world  to  come  have  been 
opened  up  by  Christ.  The  Christian  state  is  as 
truly  part  and  prelibation  of  the  things  above 
as  a  portal  forms  part  of  the  house.  If  not 
wholly  within,  we  certainly  are  come  to  Mount 
Zion,  the  city  of  the  living  God.  And  in  this  we 
are  more  than  Abraham.  No  such  Gospel  broke 
in  upon  the  solitude  of  these  ancient  shepherds, 
not  even  upon  Jacob,  when  he  saw  the  ladder 
reaching  up  into  heaven  with  the  angels  of  God 
ascending  and  descending  upon  it.  But  do  you 
not  see,  that  precisely  on  account  of  this  differ- 
ence in  knowledge  the  faculty  of  faith  had  ad- 
dressed to  it  a  stronger  challenge  than  it  has 
in  us,  who  pilgrim  with  heaven's  door  wide  open 
in  our  sight?  For  this  reason  it  is  so  profitable 
to  return  again  and  again  to  this  part  of  the  Old 
Testament  Scriptures,  and  learn  what  great 
faith  could  do  with  less  privilege,  how  precisely 
because  it  had  such  limited  resource  of  knowl- 
edge, it  made  a  sublimer  flight,  soaring  with 
supreme  dominion  up  to  the  highest  heights  of 
God. 

Let  us  try  briefly  to  analyze  what  this  other- 
worldliness  of  the  patriarchs  involved,  and  in 


HEAVENLY-MINDEDNESS  143 

what  respects  it  will  be  well  for  us  to  cultivate 
it.  The  first  feature  to  be  noted  is  that  it  is  not 
essentially  negative  but  positive  in  character. 
The  core  lies  not  in  what  it  relinquishes  but  in 
what  it  seeks.  Escape  from  the  world  here  be- 
low and  avoidance  of  the  evil  in  the  world  do  not 
furnish  its  primary  motive.  That  is  true  only 
of  the  abnormal,  morbid  type  of  other-worldli- 
ness,  that  connected  with  pessimism  and  mon- 
astic seclusion.  From  an  unwarranted  identi- 
fication with  these  the  true  grace  portrayed  by 
Scripture  has  been  exposed  to  much  ill-consid- 
ered criticism  and  fallen  into  disrepute.  If 
heavenly-mindedness  were  an  upward  flight  in 
the  ignominious  sense  of  the  word,  it  would  be 
the  very  opposite  to  the  heroism  of  genuine 
faith,  a  seeking  for  a  harbor  of  refuge,  instead 
of  a  steering  for  the  haven  of  home.  Do  not  mis- 
understand me.  It  is  only  right  that  in  some 
measure  the  bitter  experience  of  sin  and  evil 
should  contribute  to  the  Christian's  desire  for 
heaven.  The  attraction  of  heaven  is  in  part  the 
attraction  of  freedom  from  sin.  And  not  a  lit- 
tle of  the  contempt  poured  upon  it,  while  pre- 
tending to  protest  against  cloistered  withdrawal, 
springs  in  reality  from  a  defective  perception 
of  the  seriousness  of  sin.  Where  the  eye  has 
not  by  divine  grace  been  opened  to  the  world's 
wickedness,  it  is  easy  to  look  with  disdain  on 
the  Christian's  world-shyness.  But  the  Chris- 
tian, who  knows  that  the  end  of  sin  cannot  come 
until  the  end  of  this  world,  looks  at  the  question 
in  a  light  of  his  own.  He  is  fully  warranted  in 
considering  ridicule  of  this  kind  part  of  the  re- 


144  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

proach  of  Christ  and  bearing  it  with  joy.  Nor 
should  we  forget,  that  an  excess  of  interest  in 
the  present  life,  when  shown  in  the  name  of 
religion,  is  apt,  in  our  day,  to  be  a  symptom  of 
doubt  or  unbelief  in  regard  to  the  life  to  come. 
Still  the  principle  remains  in  force,  that  the  de- 
sirability of  heaven  should  never  possess  exclu- 
sively or  mainly  negative  significance.  It  is  not 
something  first  brought  into  the  religious  mind 
through  sin.  The  lineage  and  birth-right  of 
other-worldliness  are  of  the  oldest  and  noblest. 
By  God  Himself  this  traveler's  unrest  was  im- 
planted in  the  soul.  Ever  since  the  goal  set  by 
the  Covenant  of  Works  came  within  his  ken, 
man  carries  with  him  in  all  his  converse  with 
this  world  the  sense  of  appurtenance  to  another. 
This  is  but  to  say  that  supernaturalism  forms 
from  the  outset  the  basis  of  true  religion  in  man. 
Man  belongs  to  two  spheres.  And  Scripture  not 
only  teaches  that  these  two  spheres  are  distinct, 
it  also  teaches  what  estimate  of  relative  impor- 
tance ought  to  be  placed  upon  them.  Heaven  is 
the  primordial,  earth  the  secondary  creation.  In 
heaven  are  the  supreme  realities;  what  sur- 
rounds us  here  below  is  a  copy  and  shadow  of 
the  celestial  things.  Because  the  relation  be- 
tween the  two  spheres  is  positive,  and  not  nega- 
tive, not  mutually  repulsive,  heavenly-minded- 
ness  can  never  give  rise  to  neglect  of  the  duties 
pertaining  to  the  present  life.  It  is  the  ordi- 
nance and  will  of  God,  that  not  apart  from,  but 
on  the  basis  of,  and  in  contact  with,  the  earthly 
sphere  man  shall  work  out  his  heavenly  destiny. 
Still  the  lower  may  never  supplant  the  higher  in 


HEAVENLY-MINDEDNESS  145 

our  affections.  In  the  heart  of  man  time  calls 
for  eternity,  earth  for  heaven.  He  must,  if  nor- 
mal, seek  the  things  above,  as  the  flower's  face 
is  attracted  by  the  sun,  and  the  water-courses 
are  drawn  to  the  ocean.  Heavenly-mindedness, 
so  far  from  blunting  or  killing  the  natural  de- 
sires, produces  in  the  believer  a  finer  organiza- 
tion, with  more  delicate  sensibilities,  larger 
capacities,  a  stronger  pulse  of  life.  It  does  not 
spell  empoverishment,  but  enrichment  of  nature. 
The  spirit  of  the  entire  Epistle  shows  this.  The 
use  of  the  words  "city"  and  "country"  is  evi- 
dence of  it.  These  are  terms  that  stand  for  the 
accumulation,  the  efflorescence,  the  intensive 
enjoyment  of  values.  Nor  should  we  overlook 
the  social  note  in  the  representation.  A  perfect 
communion  in  a  perfect  society  is  promised.  In 
the  city  of  the  living  God  believers  are  joined  to 
the  general  assembly  and  church  of  the  first- 
born, and  mingle  with  the  spirits  of  just  men 
made  perfect.  And  all  this  faith  recognizes.  It 
does  not  first  need  the  storms  and  stress  that  in- 
vade to  quicken  its  desire  for  such  things.  Be- 
ing the  sum  and  substance  of  all  the  positive 
gifts  of  God  to  us  in  their  highest  form,  heaven 
is  of  itself  able  to  evoke  in  our  hearts  positive 
love,  such  absorbing  love  as  can  render  us  at 
times  forgetful  of  the  earthly  strife.  In  such 
moments  the  transcendent  beauty  of  the  other 
shore  and  the  irresistable  current  of  our  deep- 
est life  lift  us  above  every  regard  of  wind  or 
wave.  We  know  that  through  weather  fair  or 
foul  our  ship  is  bound  straight  for  its  eternal 
port. 


146  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

Next  to  the  positiveness  of  its  object  the  high 
degree  of  actuality  in  the  working  of  this  grace 
should  be  considered.  Through  the  faith  of 
heavenly-mindedness  the  things  above  reveal 
themselves  to  the  believer,  are  present  with  him, 
and  communicate  themselves  to  him.  Though 
as  yet  a  pilgrim,  the  Christian  is  never  wholly 
separated  from  the  land  of  promise.  His  tents 
are  pitched  in  close  view  of  the  city  of  God. 
Heaven  is  present  to  the  believer's  experience  in 
no  less  real  a  sense  than  Canaan  with  its  fair 
^hills  and  valleys  lay  close  to  the  vision  of  Abra- 
ham. He  walks  in  the  light  of  the  heavenly 
world  and  is  made  acquainted  with  the  kindred 
spirits  inhabiting  it.  And  since  the  word  "act- 
ual" in  its  literal  sense  means  "that  which 
works,"  the  life  above  possesses  for  the  believer 
the  highest  kind  of  actuality.  He  is  given  to  taste 
the  powers  of  the  world  to  come,  as  Abraham 
breathed  the  air  of  Canaan,  and  was  refreshed 
by  the  dews  descending  on  its  fields.  The  roots 
of  the  Christian's  life  are  fed  from  those  rich 
and  perennial  springs  that  lie  deep  in  the  re- 
cesses of  converse  with  God,  where  prayers  as- 
cend and  divine  graces  descend,  so  that  after 
each  season  of  tryst  he  issues,  a  new  man,  from 
the  secrecy  of  his  tent.  Because  it  had  this  ef- 
fect for  the  patriarchs,  faith  had  so  intimately 
joined  to  it  the  exercise  of  hope.  It  is  no  less 
the  assurance  of  things  hoped  for  than  the  prov- 
ing of  things  not  seen.  It  annihilates  the  dis- 
tance of  time  as  much  as  of  space.  If  faith 
deals  with  heaven  as  it  exists,  hope  seizes  upon 
it  as  it  will  be  at  the  end.    Hope  attaches  itself 


HEAVENLY-MINDEDNESS  147 

to  promises;  it  sees  and  greets  from  afar.  As 
the  Epistle  describes  it,  it  does  not  contemplate 
purely  provisional  and  earthly  developments, 
does  not  come  to  rest  in  the  happenings  of  inter- 
mediate ages,  but  relates  to  the  end.  In  one  un- 
broken flight  it  soars  to  the  goal  of  God's  work 
in  history,  which  is  none  other  than  the  finished 
heaven.  For  heaven  itself  is  subject  to  a  process 
of  preparation,  so  that  its  full  content  became 
accessible  only  to  the  patriarchs  through  a  pro- 
jection of  their  faith  in  time.  The  heaven  for 
which  they  hoped  was  the  heaven  of  redemption, 
enriched  through  the  ages,  become  peopled 
with  the  successive  generations  of  the  saints  of 
God,  filled  with  the  glory  of  Christ,  the  recre- 
ated paradise,  towards  which  all  the  streams  of 
grace  springing  up  in  time  send  their  waters. 
The  believer  requires  this  new  heaven,  not  sim- 
ply the  cosmical  place  that  resulted  from  the 
first  creation.  Hence  his  heavenly-mindedness 
can  never  destroy  interest  in  the  unfolding  of 
the  ways  of  God  throughout  the  history  of  the 
present  world.  Neither  grows  he  impatient 
when  the  promise  seems  to  tarry.  For  his  hope 
also  is  in  him  a  vitalizing  power.  It  lives  by  the 
things  that  are  not  as  though  they  were  already, 
and  makes  the  future  supply  strength  for  the 
present.  Amidst  all  the  vicissitudes  of  time  the 
Christian  knows  that  the  foundations  of  the 
city  of  God  are  being  quietly  laid,  that  its  walls 
are  rising  steadily,  and  that  it  will  at  last  stand 
finished  in  all  its  golden  glory,  the  crowning 
product  of  the  work  of  God  for  his  own. 

But  the  faith  of  heavenly-mindedness  in  yet 


148  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

another,  even  prof  ounder,  sense  surmounts  time. 
In  contrast  with  what  is  transitory  it  lays  hold 
of  the  unchanging  and  eternal.  The  text  ex- 
presses this  by  describing  the  city  looked  for  as 
the  city  which  has  the  foundations.  The  differ- 
ence between  the  well-founded  enduring  edifice 
and  the  frail,  collapsible  tent  has  induced  this 
turn  of  the  figure.  Already  in  the  prophet 
Isaiah  Jehovah  declares :  "Behold  I  lay  in  Zion 
for  a  foundation  a  stone,  a  precious  corner- 
stone of  sure  foundation :  he  that  believeth  shall 
not  make  haste."  In  this  word  the  two  ideas  of 
sure  foundation  and  faith  are  brought  into  close 
connection.  Because  the  foundation  is  sure  the 
believer  can  lay  aside  all  disquietude  and  im- 
patience in  regard  to  the  working  out  of  the 
divine  purpose.  He  need  not  make  haste.  It  is 
of  the  essence  of  faith  to  crave  assurance ;  hence 
it  cannot  come  to  rest  until  it  have  cast  its  an- 
chor into  the  eternal.  Ajid  heaven  above  all  else 
partakes  of  the  character  of  eternity.  It  is  the 
realm  of  the  unchangeable.  In  this  lower  world 
Time  with  its  law  of  attrition  is  king.  Nothing 
can  escape  his  inexorable  rule.  What  is  must 
cease  to  be,  what  appears  must  vanish,  what  is 
built  must  be  broken  down,  even  though  human 
heart  should  cherish  it  more  than  its  own  life. 
And  this  applies  not  merely  to  objects  of  natural 
affection ;.  it  involves  also  much  that  is  of  transi- 
tory purpose  in  the  service  and  Church  of  God. 
Even  our  religion  in  its  earthly  exercise  is  not 
exempt  from  the  tragical  aspect  borne  by  all  ex- 
istence in  time.  The  summons  comes  again 
and  again:    "Get  thee  out  of  thy  country,  and 


HEAVENLY-MINDEDNESS  149 

from  thy  kindred,  and  from  thy  father's  house," 
and  after  a  brief  spell  of  comfort  and  delight  we 
anew  find  ourselves  in  tents  roaming  through  an 
inhospitable  world.    There  is  no  help  for  these 
things.    Like  Abraham  we  must  resolutely  con- 
fess, that  we  are  strangers  and  pilgrims  in  a 
land  of  time,  and  that  the  best  this  land  can 
offer  us  is  but  a  caravanserai  to  tarry  in  for  a 
day  and  a  night.   Abraham  would  have  undoubt- 
edly rejoiced  in  the  vision  of  the  historical  Jeru- 
salem around  which  gather  so  many  glories  of 
God's  redemptive  work.     But,  suppose  it  had 
risen  up  before  him  in  all  its  beauty,  would  that 
have  been  the  soul-satisfying  vision  his  faith  de- 
sired ?    No,  there  is  neither  quietness  nor  repose 
for  the  believer's  heart  except  on  the  bosom  of 
eternity.    There  and  there  alone  is  shelter  from 
the  relentless  pursuit  of  change.    The  inspired 
writer  tells  us  that  the  two  most  momentous 
events  in  sacred  history,  the  giving  of  the  law 
on  Sinai  and  the  end  of  the  world,  signify  the 
removal  of  things  that  are  shaken,  in  order  that 
such  things  as  are  not  shakable  may  remain. 
And  the  second  shaking  is  so  radical  and  com- 
prehensive that  it  involves  not  only  the  earth 
but  likewise  the  heavens :  it  will  sweep  the  transi- 
tory out  of  the  life  of  the  people  of  God  even  in 
the  higher  regions,  and  will  leave  them,  when 
the  smoke  and  dust  of  the  upheaval  are  blown 
av/ay,  in  a  clear  atmosphere  of  eternal  life.    But 
in  this  sense  also  faith  is  not  purely  prospective : 
it  enables  to  anticipate;  it  draws  down  the  im- 
perishable substance  of  eternity  into  its  vessel 
of  time  and  feeds  on  it.   The  believer  knows  that 


150  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

even  now  there  is  in  him  that  which  has  been 
freed  from  the  law  of  change,  a  treasure  that 
moth  and  rust  cannot  corrupt,  true  riches  en- 
shrined in  his  heart  as  in  a  treasury  of  God. 
Have  we  ever  been  impressed  in  reading  the 
narrative  of  Genesis  by  the  peacefulness  and 
serenity  enveloping  the  figures  of  the  patri- 
archs? There  is  something  else  here  besides 
the  idyllic  charm  of  rural  surroundings.  What 
enviable  freedom  from  the  unrest,  the  impa- 
tience, the  feverish  excitement  of  the  children 
of  this  world!  Our  modern  Christian  life  so 
often  lacks  the  poise  and  stability  of  the  eternal. 
Religion  has  come  so  overmuch  to  occupy  itself 
with  the  things  of  time  that  it  catches  the  spirit 
of  time.  Its  purposes  turn  fickle  and  unsteady; 
its  methods  become  superficial  and  ephemeral; 
it  alters  its  course  so  constantly;  it  borrows  so 
readily  from  sources  beneath  itself,  that  it  un- 
dermines its  own  prestige  in  matters  pertaining 
to  the  eternal  world.  Where  lies  the  remedy? 
It  would  be  useless  to  seek  it  in  withdrawal  from 
the  struggles  of  this  present  world.  The  true 
corrective  lies  in  this,  that  we  must  learn  again 
to  carry  a  heaven-fed  and  heaven-centered  spirit 
into  our  walk  and  work  below.  The  grand 
teaching  of  the  Epistle  that  through  Christ  and 
the  New  Covenant  the  heavenly  projects  into 
the  earthly,  as  the  headlands  of  a  continent  pro- 
ject into  the  ocean,  should  be  made  fruitful  for 
the  whole  tone  and  temper  of  our  Christian  ser- 
vice. Every  task  should  be  at  the  same  time  a 
means  of  grace  from  and  an  incentive  to  work 
for  heaven.    There  has  been  One  greater  than 


HEAVENLY-MINDED  NESS  151 

Abraham,  who  lived  his  life  in  absolute  harmony 
with  this  principle,  in  whom  the  fullest  absorp- 
tion in  his  earthly  calling  could  not  for  a  moment 
disturb  the  consciousness  of  being  a  child  of 
heaven.  Though,  like  unto  the  patriarchs.  He 
had  no  permanent  home,  not  event  a  tent,  this 
was  not  in  his  case  the  result  of  a  break  with  an 
earthly-minded  past.  It  was  natural  to  Him.  In 
his  mind  were  perfectly  united  the  two  hemi- 
spheres of  supernaturalism,  that  of  the  source 
of  power  back  of,  and  that  of  the  eternal  goal  of 
life  beyond  every  work.  A  religion  that  has 
ceased  to  set  its  face  towards  the  celestial  city, 
is  bound  sooner  or  later  to  discard  also  all  super- 
natural resources  in  its  endeavor  to  transform 
this  present  world.  The  days  are  perhaps  not 
far  distant  when  we  shall  find  ourselves  con- 
fronted with  a  quasi-form  of  Christianity  pro- 
fessing openly  to  place  its  dependence  on  and  to 
work  for  the  present  life  alone,  a  religion,  to  use 
the  language  of  Hebrews,  become  profane  and 
a  fornicator  like  Esau,  selling  for  a  mess  of 
earthly  pottage  its  heavenly  birth-right. 

There  are  two  more  aspects  of  the  patri- 
archal faith  of  heavenly-mindedness  to  be  brief- 
ly considered.  The  first  is  its  spirituality. 
Heavenly-mindedness  is  spiritual-mindedness. 
This  pervades  like  an  atmosphere  the  entire 
Epistle.  We  have  already  seen  that  even  in  the 
promised  land  the  patriarchs  remained  tent- 
dwellers.  God  had  a  wise  purpose  in  thus  post- 
poning for  them  personally  the  fulfilment  of  the 
temporal  promise.  Although  Canaan  was  a  good- 
ly land,  it  was  yet,  after  all,  material  and  not 


152  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

of  that  higher  substance  we  call  spiritual.  While 
capable  of  carrying  up  the  mind  to  supernal 
regions,  it  also  exposed  to  the  danger  of  becom- 
ing satisfied  with  the  blessing  in  its  provisional 
form.  That  this  danger  was  not  imaginary  the 
later  history  of  Israel  testifies.  In  order  to  guard 
against  such  a  result  in  the  case  of  the  patri- 
archs God  withheld  from  them  the  land  and  its 
riches  and  made  of  this  denial  a  powerful  spir- 
itualizing discipline.  By  it  they  were  led  to  re- 
flect that,  since  the  promise  was  theirs  beyond 
all  doubt,  and  yet  they  were  not  allowed  to  in- 
herit it  in  its  material  form,  that  therefore  it 
must  in  the  last  analysis  relate  to  something  far 
higher  and  different,  something  of  which  the  vis- 
ible and  sensual  is  a  mere  image.  Thus  the  con- 
ception of  another  sphere  of  being  was  intro- 
duced into  their  minds :  henceforth  they  sought 
the  better  country.  Not  as  if  the  things  of 
sense  were  worthless  in  themselves,  but  because 
they  knew  of  something  transcendent  that 
claimed  their  supreme  affection.  Their  tastes 
and  enjoyments  had  been  raised  to  another 
plane.  The  refinement  of  grace  had  been  im- 
parted to  them.  For  bodily  hands  there  had 
been,  as  it  were,  substituted  spiritual  antennae, 
sensitive  to  intangible  things.  They  had  come 
to  a  mountain  that  could  not  be  touched  and  yet 
could  be  felt.  In  all  the  treasures  and  promises  of 
religion  the  one  valuable  thing  is  this  spiritual 
core.  In  the  word  that  God  speaks  we  can  taste 
all  his  goodness  and  grace.  Hope  itself  is  spir- 
itualized, remaining  no  longer  the  hope  of  im- 
agination but  grasping  in  God  the  ideal  root 


HEAVENLY -MINDEDNESS  153 

from  which  the  whole  future  must  spring  and 
blossom  in  due  time.  The  heavenly  world  does 
not  appear  desirable  as  simply  a  second  im- 
proved edition  of  this  life ;  that  would  be  noth- 
ing else  than  earthly-mindedness  projected  into 
the  future.  The  very  opposite  takes  place: 
heaven  spiritualizes  in  advance  our  present 
walk  with  God.  Each  time  faith  soars  and 
alights  behind  the  veil  it  brings  back  on  its 
wings  some  of  the  subtle  fragrance  that  there 
prevails.  This  also  is  an  important  principle  in 
need  of  stress  at  the  present  day.  If  there  is 
danger  of  Christianity  being  temporalized,  there 
is  no  less  danger  of  its  being  materialized.  How 
easily  do  we  fall  into  the  habit  of  handling  the 
things  of  our  holy  faith  after  an  external,  quan- 
titative, statistical  fashion,  so  that  they  turn 
flesh  under  our  touch  and  emit  a  savor  of  earth  ? 
If  at  any  time  or  in  any  form  this  fault  should 
threaten  to  befall  us,  let  us  revisit  the  tents  of 
the  patriarchs  and  rehearse  the  lesson,  that  in 
religion  the  body  without  the  soul  is  worthless 
and  without  power. 

The  other  point  to  be  observed  is  this,  that 
heaven  is  the  normal  goal  of  our  redemption. 
We  all  know  that  religion  is  older  than  redemp- 
tion. At  the  same  time  the  experience  of  re- 
demption is  the  summit  of  religion.  The  two 
have  become  so  interwoven  that  the  Christian 
cannot  conceive  of  a  future  state  from  which  the 
redemptive  mould  and  color  would  be  absent. 
The  deepest  and  dearest  in  us  is  so  much  the 
product  of  salvation,  that  the  vision  of  God  as 
such  and  the  vision  of  God  our  Savior  melt  into 


154  GRACE      AND      GLORY 

one.  We  could  not  separate  them  if  we  would. 
The  simple  reason  is  that  precisely  in  redeeming 
us  God  has  revealed  to  us  the  inmost  essence  of 
his  deity.  No  one  but  a  redeemed  creature  can 
truly  know  what  it  is  for  God  to  be  God,  and 
what  it  means  to  worship  and  possess  Him  as 
God.  This  is  the  fine  gold  of  the  Christian's  ex- 
perience, sweeter  to  him  than  honey  and  the 
honeycomb.  The  river  that  makes  glad  the  city 
of  God  is  the  river  of  grace.  The  believer's  mind 
and  heart  will  only  in  heaven  compass  the  full 
riches,  the  length  and  breadth  and  depth  and 
height  of  the  love  of  God.  No  one  can  drink  so 
deeply  of  it  here,  but  he  will  more  deeply  drink 
hereafter.  Blessed  be  God,  no  stream  of  Lethe 
flows  this  side  of  his  city  to  wash  away  from  our 
minds  the  remembrance  of  redeeming  grace! 
The  life  above  will  be  a  ceaseless  coming  to 
Jesus,  the  Mediator  of  a  better  covenant,  and  to 
the  blood  of  sprinkling  that  speaketh  better  than 
Abel.  The  Lamb  slain  for  our  sins  will  be  all  the 
glory  of  Emmanuel's  land. 

Finally  the  highest  thing  that  can  be  spoken 
about  this  city  is  that  it  is  the  city  of  our  God, 
that  He  is  in  the  midst  of  it.  Traced  to  its  ulti- 
mate root  heavenly-mindedness  is  the  thirst  of 
the  soul  after  God,  the  living  God.  The  patri- 
archs looked  not  for  some  city  in  general,  but 
for  a  city  whose  builder  and  maker  was  God. 
It  is  characteristic  of  faith  that  it  not  merely 
desires  the  perfect  but  desires  the  perfect  as  a 
work  and  gift  of  God.  A  heaven  that  was  not 
illumined  by  the  light  of  God,  and  not  a  place  for 
closest  embrace  of  Him,  would  be  less  than 


HEAVENLY-MINDEDNESS  155 

heaven.  God  as  builder  and  maker  thereof  has 
put  the  better  part  of  Himself  into  his  work. 
Therefore  those  who  enter  the  city  are  in  God. 
The  thought  is  none  other  than  that  of  the  seer 
in  the  Apocalypse :  "I  saw  no  temple  therein :  for 
the  Lord  God,  the  Almighty  and  the  Lamb  are 
the  temple  thereof.  And  that  city  has  no  need 
of  the  sun,  neither  of  the  moon  to  shine  upon  it, 
for  the  glory  of  God  lightens  it,  and  the  throne 
of  God  and  the  Lamb  are  therein :  and  his  serv- 
ants shall  do  Him  service,  and  they  shall  see  his 
face,  and  his  name  shall  be  on  their  foreheads." 
And  the  faith  is  the  faith  of  the  Psalmist,  who 
spoke :  "Whom  have  I  in  heaven  but  Thee,  and 
there  is  none  upon  earth  that  I  desire  beside 
Thee."  Here  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  tell  how 
truly  and  to  what  extent  our  relation  to  God  is 
a  relation  of  pure,  disinterested  love  in  which  we 
seek  Him  for  his  own  sake.  There,  when  all  want 
and  sin-frailty  shall  have  slipped  away  from  us, 
we  shall  be  able  to  tell.  It  was  because  God 
discerned  in  the  souls  of  the  patriarchs,  under- 
neath all  else,  this  personal  love,  this  homesick- 
ness for  Himself,  that  He  caused  to  be  recorded 
about  them  the  greatest  thing  that  can  be 
spoken  of  any  man :  that  God  is  not  ashamed  to 
be  called  their  God,  and  that  He  has  prepared 
for  them  the  city  of  their  desire. 


Date  Due 


>«i   ' "  "*" '" 


APR    18  <g 


